Leaks again hint at Valve doing a proper Steam Machine Console

Want one!

Edit: without Winblowz of course.


Last edited by tfk on 21 Aug 2025 at 10:56 am UTC

After the previous failure of the stationary Steam Machine I am worried if this has any chance. I think the SteamOS Verified program (previously, Steam Deck Verified) would need to seriously step up its game to ensure there are no games marked as Verified but actually unplayable. Because this still happens from time to time.

We definitely need that Steam Controller 2 as well that's for sure.

Amen to that, brother

I could see Valve making a few prototypes every couple of years to estimate how well a Steam console could perform within a certain price point. And it's probably easier to slap Windows on them for testing purposes.

Now, would they release a console with similar specs?
Honestly, maybe. The RX 7600 is capable enough to handle most games at 1080p/60FPS or 1440p/30FPS. That's very comparable to the current consoles except the PS5 Pro. Also, RDNA3 isn't that sought-after of an architecture with it's relatively high power consumption and only modest improvements over RDNA2. Especially in regards to raytracing and upscaling. Maybe they can get a good deal on those cards and thanks to Linux we can use FSR4 with solid performance which would be a decent advantage over the lackluster FSR2/3 implementations on console. 8GB VRAM is a bummer but just enough currently.

I could see it being released and doing okay for the right price. Though a cut down RDNA4 card could be significantly better for longevity. A 9050(XT) essentially. Better raytracing and FSR4 performance and 12/16GB VRAM would go a long way to make it last longer.

For a traditional console, the anti-cheat situation is going to be a major roadblock. Who knows, Valve may be doing their tests with the Xbox ROG Ally windows version? They might offer both options?

This said, I would get one to install SteamOS on it, right from the start.

I believe this could be an old testing hardware.
I'm pretty sure Valve aims at something beefier for a TV console.

IMO Valve is experimenting to find the minimal viable product allowing customers to install Windows 11 if they aren't happy with SteamOS limitations (*cough*anti-cheat*cough*). Once you have the minimal viable product, you can estimate the minimal production cost and start looking at what kind of compromise you can do to offer more than the mvp while keeping the cost low.

Plus we have idiots like EA rolling out games using Secure boot and TPM based anticheat which are defeated after one day but the idiots will still keep requiring Secure Boot and TPM as implemented on Windows 11 to launch the game. So until Valve brings up their own server side anticheat to stuff and convince corporates to switch to it, the best Valve can do is pay developper to improve Secure Boot support and TPM 2.0 on Linux so they can implement it on SteamOS. However you cannot test potential OS features which haven't been developped yet on present hardware. Leaving only Windows 11 to test if their hardware is compatible with EA's Secure Boot and TPM based anticheat.

This is my opinion on why Valve.would test a Steam Machine running Windows 11 with only 8Gb of RAM for the CPU (the GPU on the prototype seemingly having its own separate VRAM).

I think enough people would be interested, looking at how many people get into mini pcs these days

One advantage of doing it now is, they're already maintaining an OS and Proton for the Deck, so it's not much more work to put that same OS and Proton on something else.

I don't think that was a Valve console. I still think Valve will release a console this year. Would be a mistake if they don't. Unless they got some real reasons to wait until 2026. Whatever they release, it better be more powerful than this "fremont" device. If they do release a console this year, then my LCD Steam Deck will easily last until 2027 or 2028.

We definitely need that Steam Controller 2 as well that's for sure.

Seriously can't come soon enough.

Whatever they release, it better be more powerful than this "fremont" device.

It all depends on the targeted price tag. 8gb of Vram is clearly not enough, it should be 16gb or 32gb and it should support FSR4.

With this, it could be a competent entry level console priced like a PS5. I've been playing on a Ryzen 5 3600 with RX 6600 for the last two years and I didn't feel the need to upgrade.

In the following weeks/months, I would like to see Valve leak benchmarks using a custom Ryzen ai max+ 395 (core count? minus ai?).

The Steam Deck had many apu iterations, during its development...

unlike steamdeck that have a reason to exist (portability) this thing might strugle without anti cheat , especially when an title like gta6 launches, even if it dont support pc in general, i cant see many people chosing it instead of an xbox/playstation, especially now that sony will support xbox and xbox will support playstation, one of the key advantages of steam and pc games was to have support for both vendor exclusives.

it need to be priced very low or have an much better hardware than the competition


Last edited by elmapul on 23 Aug 2025 at 12:38 am UTC

I don't know if it really needs to be *better or cheaper* to carve out a niche for itself. I've noticed a good chunk of normal non-techy people who are getting pretty interested in cutting Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo out of their lives for moral reasons, but really outside of the steamdeck nothing else on the market really appeals to most normal people who don't want to trust weird small or foreign companies they've never heard of, but want something that's not the big three evil gaming companies or the three "tiny" but evil gaming companies: Meta/Apple/Google who all offer their own gaming ecosystems too but are really just as big and dirty feeling.

Bad joke explained: Tiny because their mostly mobile/VR game companies. ^-^;

Out of the big gaming companies making hardware Valve [at least from what I've seen from people] certainly has the most favorable persona. So I could see if they did something that was truly good enough, they'd have a viable market without needing to be flashy.

This conversation is making me want to lay out a few of the pros and cons now as compared to back when.
So. When the Steam Machine came out, it had a number of cons:
--UI was by many accounts fairly clunky
--Did not offer a good solution for watching Netflix and such
--SteamOS was not well maintained
--Did not have a truly big sales channel, just selling on Steam
--Publicity wasn't good enough
--Plan for everyone else to make them was doomed to failure
--The big one: Compared to a Windows version, had far fewer games. Wine was not up to the task.
--Related: Figuring out which games would really work was not hard exactly, but not transparent enough not to be annoying.

Main pro: Compared to an Xbox or Playstation, still had in effect many more games, including a fair amount of your current Steam library if you had one.
Arguable pro: Steam Controller.

What would a Steam Machine's pros and cons look like now?
--UI has been honed by the Steam Deck; it's pretty good now. So that penalty is gone.
--I'm not sure about the Netflix etc. situation
--SteamOS is well maintained now as far as I know. That penalty gone too.
--Sales channel is still the same, except in the sense that Steam itself has grown considerably in the years since so it's just a somewhat bigger channel.
--How well they'd do the publicity is unknown
--Games situation is much better thanks to Proton and continued Wine development. Unfortunately the anti-cheat situation means there are still some prominent games missing, and they're the kind of game you might well want to play on a Steam Machine kind of setup. Just lack of Fortnite and Roblox is a harsh hit. If Valve could pay off the Roblox people somehow and get solid Roblox support, that would make the difference in a lot of cases between "Get this for my kids" and "No point getting this for my kids".
--The "which games work" problem is largely gone. There are so few that really don't, that people would just try and see. And consider that on Steam Deck, the "unsupported" category is often stuff that doesn't work with the form factor, or sometimes that just really needs beefier hardware. A Steam Machine wouldn't have those problems, so a lot of "unsupported" goes away right there.

On the plus side:
The games advantage vs. Playstation or Xbox has gone from sizable to ridiculous.
The UI is good enough that it seems to be significantly better for the purpose than an equivalent box running Windows.
I expect that a Steam Controller II would be very good.
Probably they would just do the actual box themselves this time, and they now have the hardware experience that they'd probably do it well.

Is all this good enough for a smashing success? Dunno. Most of the really key problems with the original Steam Machines are gone or at least much reduced. But some remain, and the up side . . . I dunno. Probably worth having for a moderate number of people. But one thing is, if they just do it in house, it doesn't have to be such an instant smashing success. As long as it does fairly well, it's a positive and they can build on it.

I'd be interested in a console-esque Steam Machine, but I'm curious how long it'd be viable for. My experience with PC gaming these past several years tells me that, if you want to keep up with the latest AAA games (especially if you want to play at 4K), you can expect to at least swap out your GPU once or twice throughout a PC's lifespan.

I was among the very first if not the first person to believe that SteamOS and Steam Machines would come back and have tremendous success -- and they did in the form of Steam Deck after rebasing on Immutable Arch -- brilliant.

I'm really having trouble inferring this "leak" as Valve preparing to re-enter the Living Room market.

I would argue that when SteamOS initially came out that their partners at the time were a big hindrance -- for example Dell/Alienware had a lot of overheating problems which lead to RMAs and the consoles breaking. And the Zotac consoles and others IIRC were priced at a unaffordable rate.

Valve, if you're listening -- I think the strat of having a really economical low cost entry device (such as the Steam Deck @ $399) while described as "painful" is an important part of strategy -- once people can talk themselves into buying the base model -- they can talk themselves into buying the upgraded version -- we saw that with Steam Deck higher speced machines selling well.

Also, partners matter -- having fewer hardware targets made it easier on developers to have fewer specs to target, and allowed for more quality control which were invaluable at brand and reputation building.

I have bought probably 8 Steam Decks by now and gifted them to family and friends, run Steam Linux on a giant TV, and have a bunch of Linux PCs for LAN Steam PvP.

My point -- having 4-6 people play on the living room TV on Xbox One XS controllers captures a certain kind of fun and convenience that is hard to replicate -- you only have to do the updates on 1 machine, you sit on the couch and play with friends and family and it's a blast (Eg: Ninja turtles game)

I think this __COULD__ be a stationary machine intended to be used in conjunction with Deckard, but the reality is that a standalone Deckard or a Steam Deck 2 probably have larger markets -- I kind of expect most potential gamers (children/teens age 10-20) to be used to a standalone device like cellphones for content consumption -- I wouldn't be surprised if TVs become a kind of "relic" of "the old days" as user habits change.

I would welcome a Steam Controller v2, I would also just welcome better interfacing of Steam Decks as controllers on a Big TV in the living room for up to 6-8 player PvP games on one screen.

I am not sure if most PC gamers would go for something like this because I think most people typically would just build a living room HTPC out of whatever spare parts or extra machine they have.

I do think the 10k-20k games situation greatly improves this.

If Valve wants to compete for the non-PC gamer console-gamer market, this could potentially tap that previously untapped market -- especially as cost of games has recently increased and Valve/Steam is a much better deal dollar per value.

I just think that sociologically, and psychologically the PC and Console player differ, and tapping the console gamer might require some new & optimized strats.

Also, I think that to be real, Oculus as a standalone gained so much traction for being able to be standalone, and enable players to be 'naughty' in the same way 'Back Massagers' became popular decades ago. Having a tethered VR, even wirelessly I am still 50/50 on whether or not it would deliver superior value to players.

I think that this "Living Room" could enhance existing valve tech like leveraging in home streaming to Phones, existing TVs in various rooms, to existing customers Steam Decks, Laptops, and other low powered devices, etc...

The "playing with tha boyz" IRL on the couch Halo 3, ODST, Reach has been dead since Microsoft made Halo 4 online 2 players per screen, and the internet bandwidth increased allowing people to connect remotely better.

I do think there is a multi-million dollar market, if not multi-billion dollar left behind by this hubris & meddling to try to "sell more copies".

If there were a few 4-6 player games on a big TV, with the right controllers, I think it could push a console like an avalanche billions of dollars, current sales models are SaaS, pay to win, and pay to be fancy -- but to win a player-bases love creates loyal consumers which pay out big (I mean I did by 8 steam decks because I believe in Valve bigtime for decades).

I would suggest treading optimistically, but cautiously as was the case with Steam Deck launch. I just really hope that if they do something new and it's x86_64 that it's AMD like Steam Deck -- it keeps costs lower, the drivers are better because their open source, more stable, and I think the thermals are more manageable for mid range too.

I would also strongly recommend having "personalization" styling options for Steam Controller v2 and any devices as was the case with Steam Deck White, and Steam Deck Limited Editions (Orange) -- consumers love to "make the device their own" -- in the same way Steam Deck boot splash has a major hit.

<3 Valve.

I'd buy a Steam console in a heartbeat - my Steam Deck basically spends its time in a dock, which in turn is connected to a projector, because but I'm getting older and my eyes just aren't what they used to be.

For a traditional console, the anti-cheat situation is going to be a major roadblock.

unlike steamdeck that have a reason to exist (portability) this thing might strugle without anti cheat , especially when an title like gta6 launches

100%.

The Steam Deck is fantastic is so many ways - but if Valve Software are serious about being a major competitor to console gaming (handheld or otherwise), they need to find a way to attract more online multiplayer games to Steam and actually keep them there.

They don't need everything on SteamOS from Day One, just a handful of carefully curated games that will bring large numbers of gamers across to SteamOS... Then the rest will follow.

Unfortunately the anti-cheat situation means there are still some prominent games missing, and they're the kind of game you might well want to play on a Steam Machine kind of setup. Just lack of Fortnite and Roblox is a harsh hit. If Valve could pay off the Roblox people somehow and get solid Roblox support, that would make the difference in a lot of cases between "Get this for my kids" and "No point getting this for my kids"

The thing is, most anti-cheat systems actually support Linux-based operating systems natively... But you have "key" people and "key" companies that flat-out refuse to support Linux-based operating systems because they don't like Linux (or have been paid-off by Microsoft, which I think is equally likely).

Sure, they have all sorts of arguments as to why they don't support Linux - but most of those arguments can quickly be torn apart with facts, and many (most?) of their complaints about Linux also apply to Microsoft Windows, too.

So at the end of the day, it just comes down to influential people within the industry that simply don't like Linux and / or have been bribed by Microsoft doing whatever they can to discourage fellow developers from supporting SteamOS.

Makes a ton of sense the do this. MS has completely dropped the ball on PC gaming, essentially turning their operating system into malware AI slop. Once again Valve could step up to benevolently steer the trajectory of gaming towards greener pastures.

I'm getting older and my eyes just aren't what they used to be.

That's why I'm still hoping they'll make a "Steambook", with the same hardware specifications as a Steamdeck but in a laptop form-factor and at least a 15" screen.

I don't have a television, so a console would be of little interest to me.