Valve's New Steam Machine Is A Steamos-powered Mini PC Over Six...

"We finally have all the software and the hardware bits to make the original vision a reality."

Built by Valve, powered by SteamOS, the new Steam Machine is a compact gaming PC. One trying to make good on a promise Valve made a long time ago.

With prototype Steam Machines heading out to reviewers back in 2013, us included, the company had grand plans of reinventing what constitutes a gaming PC around its new creation, a Linux-based operating system called SteamOS. Years on, and following a few failed partner launches that you can read all about in our retrospective of their demise, the project was more or less doomed. By 2018, Valve pulled the plug.

Or did it? Valve never stopped working on SteamOS, plugging away until it landed on the successful formula launched inside the Steam Deck in 2022. Following this success, Valve feels ready to take a second punt at a system with more firepower.

"We finally have all the software and the hardware bits to make the original vision a reality," Yazan Aldehayyat, a Valve engineer working on the Steam Machine, says during my visit to Valve HQ. They mention it's the right time because users are already making Steam Machines happen, putting a recovery image of SteamOS onto a range of devices or using their Steam Deck while docked.

2x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (10 Gbps), ethernet (1 Gbps)

The Steam Machine will be released at some point in 2026. We don't know pricing yet, but with older, mid-range components and Valve's own success with the budget-friendly Steam Deck, I'm hopeful for a convincing price tag here. There's a big gap in the market for a genuinely affordable gaming PC, and I'm hoping this is the machine to plug it.

Plus, the smaller 512 GB option should be a decent amount cheaper than the 2 TB model.

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"Our benchmark has always been that it should have enough performance to play every game on Steam at 4K60 when you do some sort of upscaling like FSR," Aldehayyat says.

Source: PC Gamer