Valve’s GameCube-inspired Steam Machine targets console gamers
Part PC, part console, all… cube. Apparently, we never left the GameCube era — at least according to Valve, which has announced new hardware in the wake of the immensely successful Steam Deck. There are three new offerings: the Steam Controller, because that old Xbox 360 one you’ve been using isn’t good enough anymore; the Steam Frame, a more expensive version of their already expensive VR headset; and the Steam Machine, a confusingly cube-shaped prebuilt PC intended for playing games on a TV.
“Isn’t that just a console?” you ask, as the suave and well-informed globetrotting person of mystery you are. Well, yeah, it kind of is.
According to Valve, all three of these new pieces of kit will launch in early 2026. It sure would be cool if some software launched alongside them, wouldn’t it? The kind of software it feels like we’ve spent half our lives waiting for? Valve? Please???
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I honestly think Valve is under-thinking this in some ways. I really want to get off of Windows 11 and I don't want to "learn Linux" (despite me knowing, configuring, building many Linux machines for deployment) in order to just: browse the web, watch YouTube/Netflix/etc., play games, and actually connect to my corporate network and use Teams (even though MS killed the Linux client and now only has web).
I want a platform that is *supported* and I don't have f* around w/ Linux every few days to "tweak" something. If they go w/ Windows-style interfaces to look more normal to the bulk of PC Gamers, then I think they'll stick the landing much better than they expect.
I will pay quite a bit to have a fully supported platform that just gets me off of Windows 11 (and isn't an Apple product either).
No CD tray? Might as well be an ASUS mini computer writ large.