Valve dropped three absolute bombs today. The Steam Frame standalone VR headset,
that's gonna have to be a separate video. This one focusing on the new Steam Machine,
and yes, the wait is finally over, the 2026 edition Steam Controller.
Let's start with a little history. Over 10 years ago, Valve announced their first version
of SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system that would free gamers from the shackles
of Microsoft Windows. No, it was a total commercial flop.
But instead of giving up on Steam Machines, Valve doubled down, working with game developers
on Linux native ports of their games, and with open source developers
on the proton compatibility layer that makes their Steam Deck handheld
out of the box compatible with thousands of Steam games, even ones that only ever shipped on Windows.
The Steam Deck is believed to have sold millions of units at this point, and no wonder,
given its great balance of solid gaming and outstanding affordability.
But its mobile form factor has given it certain limitations, and left gamers hungry
for something more substantial. And well, here it is.
I'm calling it the lunchbox. One, because it's substantial, like lunch.
Two, because it's cube-shaped, like a box. And three, because I think this thing is going
to eat Xbox's lunch. Okay, that last one was a bit of a reach.
But not as far as I'm reaching for this segue
to our sponsor. In what has become typical Valve fashion,
they've been atypically open about the new Steam machine,
giving us direct access to the engineering folks who worked on these devices.
The only thing I didn't have today was time, so we're going to get through this as fast as we can.
At the heart of the Steam machine is a six-core AMD Zen 4-based CPU
that turbos up to 4.8 gigahertz with 16 gigahertz.
And it's a very powerful machine, and it's a very powerful machine.
And it's a very powerful machine. 4.8 gigahertz with 16 gigs of RAM and an eight gig GPU
that they compared to a 7,600 XT-ish.
But they were also quick to point out that it might not be apples to apples
thanks to their custom software stack and power tuning. Basically, the goal was that pretty much anything on Steam
should run at 4K 60 FPS, if you're willing to turn down the details
and use a little bit of FSR upscaling. And we saw that on display with Cyberpunk
running in the demo room at these settings. Valve says to expect about six times
the performance of the Steam Deck. Now, I was a little surprised to not see an SOC
with shared memory, but apparently the decision to go for a discrete CPU and GPU
came down to balancing cost, power, size, and performance.
And also they just didn't feel like they needed to.
And I guess Valve was right because they nailed this thing.
Compared to a more traditional ITX small form factor machine
like the OG Steam machine reference design, you can see that it's a lot smaller,
more on par with a highly integrated design like something like the framework desktop investment disclosure.
Like the framework desktop, Valve allows customization of the front panel
using these magnetic plates and they're gonna provide the CAD files
so you can put whatever your heart desires on here. They even had a machine in the demo room
with an E-ink display that was showing system vitals. Pretty darn cool, but unlike the framework,
it has a programmable RGB strip in the front that could be used to personalize your style
or maybe show a progress bar while you switch your TV input and wait for your game to be downloaded.
The sky's kind of the limit. The front of the device has a power button, micro SD slot,
two USB three, five gigabit per second ports,
then the rest of the IO is in the back where you'll find two USB two type A ports,
a USB-C 10 gigabit per second port, no DisplayPort on there, that is worth noting,
gigabit Ethernet, power in for the integrated power supply.
Good gravy, this thing is compact, as well as an HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 port.
It is worth noting that HDMI 2.0 port, they have tested it at HDMI 2.1 speeds,
but there are a couple of features that are not implemented so they can't call it HDMI 2.1.
Also at the back, we have a large 120 millimeter cooling fan
that draws air from both the intake on the bottom
that comes up through the power supply as well as the large heat sink on the front.
We're gonna crack this thing fully open in a sec, but first I wanna talk about the steam controller.
No, no, not that steam controller, the new one with the exact same name.
Before you ask, yes, I made my case to Valve that this is unnecessarily confusing.
No, they're not going to change it. The good news is Valve learned a lot
from the first steam controller and this appears to be their most complete offering ever.
To be fair, the original was really cool. I mean, it made non-controller games
finally playable from the couch thanks to their innovative haptic touchpad.
They also unlocked novel input schemes with gesture controller like swiping with momentum,
but they also turned off a lot of folks
due to their deficiency of traditional joysticks.
Well, that's solved now. The steam controller is everything that is great
about the controller on the steam deck, but usable when your steam deck is in dock mode
or with your steam machine or with any other PC investment disclosure.
On the surface, it offers up a conventional ABXY button layout
with a PlayStation style symmetric joystick design that will work seamlessly out of the box
with basically any game. The track pads have been repositioned
to better accommodate the ARM's natural position
while holding a smaller device compared to the wider steam deck
and all of the usual Valve buttons are included. A steam button for opening the menu,
their quick access button for bringing up the SteamOS overlay,
four rear programmable buttons. The face buttons are satisfying
with a nice amount of resistance and the D-pad has been tuned from the steam deck
for better feel. It feels okay to me, but I only got a couple of minutes with it
before Valve blew my mind. The joysticks are next generation TMR
or tunneling magneto resistant joysticks boasting superior accuracy and durability
even compared to hull effect joysticks. And the controller has been designed from the ground up
for a superior gyroscopic aiming or mousing experience
with capacitive thumb sticks and even capacitive grips.
So you can configure your gyro to enable or disable
depending on whether you put your thumb on the stick or even by simply loosening your grip,
say to re-center and then reactivate gyroscopic aiming.
They had a great demo with Bellatro showing how you can use the game's built-in
controller compatibility like a PLAB or hear me out.
Track pads with the right for movement and the left one split down the middle
for left and right click. Or hear me out again. Gyro mouse using the face buttons for clicks.
And if you don't care about gyro aiming, these capacitive inputs are all remappable as well
opening up a whole world of possibilities.
Let's go even deeper. In addition to the haptic texture-like feedback
that you know and love from Valve's previous touch pads, the steam controller has been upgraded
with large rumble motors for better immersion and a large battery that they claim should be good
for 35 hours in the most demanding applications and even better if you don't need quite as much rumble.
But I haven't even talked about the best part. If you've ever gamed over Bluetooth,
you know that it can be inconsistent at best.
Valve solution, the puck. Every steam controller comes with a wireless dongle
that clips magnetically to the steam controller using a couple of nice strong alignment magnets.
And it uses a proprietary 2.4 gigahertz wireless interface
that Valve claims is good for about eight milliseconds end-to-end latency and offers up superior resiliency
when you're using multiple controllers. It allows four controllers per puck,
so that's not as good as the Xbox dongle, which can do eight, but Valve has tested up
to four pucks on a single system for a maximum of 16 players,
meaning that you're probably gonna run out of seats on your couch before you run out of controller compatibility.
The last mwah chef kiss on top is an IR emitter
that's cozyed up beside the power LED to help you find your controller when you're in VR.
I love it. Now let's get back to the steam machine who got naked while we were busy, oh you.
While Valve's goal was to build something that is zero hassle, grab and game for the non-tinkverse,
they really were laser focused on a console-like experience
with quick suspend and resume and modern standby so that your games are already updated
when you sit down to play. They also fully acknowledged that there are folks out there
guilty who are tinkerers and they've come up with an ingenious design for this thing
that allows it to cater to both audiences. In advance, no, you're not gonna be swapping out
the BGA soldered processors, but what you can do
is upgrade the storage with next to no hassle
to a 2230 or larger 2280 sized M.2 drive
and while we couldn't go that deep today, Valve also confirmed that the memory
uses standard Sodium slots. Finally, while Valve hasn't actually told iFixit
that this product is coming yet, they did say that they're hoping to continue
their partnership that they've had on the Steam Deck, making replacement parts available for end users.
Awesome. Since we're in here by the way, there are some really cool details
that I'd love to highlight. The power supply for one thing is fully integrated
to the point where it's actually part of the chassis and the cooling solution pulls air directly through it
which avoids any need for it to have its own fan. The aforementioned Delta cooling fan
is actually slightly thicker than the standard 25 millimeter
for extra static pressure and it includes antenna mounts
that are integrated into it along with IO mounts.
Cool, right? Oh, this is actually a great look at the four antennas.
So this is the back of the device where you have your two antennas for Wi-Fi 6E.
Then if we flip it around to the front, we've got one antenna for Bluetooth peripherals
and another one that is dedicated to your Steam controller or controllers.
So that puck that's included with your controller is actually extra and you could chuck it on another PC
or next to your couch for charging. A major question mark though is of course price.
Valve wasn't able to give any specific numbers due to rapidly evolving market conditions
but they will obviously have it nailed down when the Steam machine launches in Q1 2026
alongside the new Steam controller. They did give me one hint though.
They said that while they expect it to be very competitively priced with a PC,
that it will be priced like a PC rather than like a console
with games subsidizing the upfront hardware purchase.
They wouldn't say why but if I had to guess, I'd say it's partially to avoid stepping on the margin
opportunities of their potential partners for Steam games and Steam software
but also because they recognize that the Steam machine is a full-fledged PC capable of being used
as a full-fledged PC. There's no guarantee then that say a corporate purchase
of 10,000 of these things would result in a single game sale.
So they really do need to protect the sustainability of their hardware business.
Another major question mark is where the heck
is standalone Steam OS for custom PC builders?
Well, we aren't gonna get a formal Steam OS release for BYO hardware configurations anytime soon
but Valve has expanded the list of supported
third-party devices and they have supported installing the Steam Deck recovery image
on AMD CPU and GPU systems for some time
and recently updated it to support their latest Zen5
and RDNA4 architecture processors. So nothing prevents you from building your own Steam machine
and installing the software for free. Though you will miss out on some things.
HDMI CEC control for instance, required Valve to build a custom motherboard
in order to have your computer turn on alongside your AV receiver.
And to get that on a BYO PC would require
some serious cooperation between hardware makers that I don't know if we should hold our breath for.
But the bulk of the experience should work pretty much out of the box.
We may even get a release that supports a broader range of hardware in the future
but the vibe I'm picking up on around here is that it really depends on better support for Intel
and especially NVIDIA GPUs. I'm also picking up this vibe to our sponsor.
I tried to get through everything but I only had about four hours to get briefed on everything right and film so my apologies.
Now, assuming that that one's up yet, go check out the video on the Steam Frame VR headset
because it's a game changer, it's a big deal. Please make it clear that this is not a real product.
Sorry.