Punch Sony, kick Microsoft: Steam console released, console war enters second half?

"Ten years of sharpening a sword" is often used as a metaphor for people to study hard, practice hard, and finally return as the king. And just today, a game console that has been "sharpened for ten years" shocked the entire game market - not because of its high performance configuration, but because the manufacturer that released this game console has a name that players are familiar with:Steam.

On November 13, Valve officially announced a new generation of Steam Machine, a game console with performance comparable to PS5 but only half the size.

Picture | Steam

If you have been paying attention to the game console market for a long time, you may have some impression of the name Steam Machine. As early as ten years ago, Valve launched a game console called Steam Machine:

Picture | TheVerge

However, this small console with a built-in GTX Titan failed to enter mass production, and Valve's subsequent collaboration with Alienware, the Alienware Alpha console, also received a mediocre response. It wasn't until the Steam Deck came out in 2022 that Valve really established a foothold in the gaming hardware market.

However, just two years after Valve gained a foothold, it's back with the Steam Machine, and this time it may well be successful.

To put it simply, Valve released a total of three pieces of hardware this time:

Steam Machine, a cube-shaped game console with a side length of 15cm

Steam Frame, a VR headset focused on streaming

New Steam Controller with dual trackpads

Among them, the most popular one is this cube-shaped console that looks like a NeXT computer.

Picture｜X @valvesoftware

Valve joins the console wars

According to the Steam official website, the new Steam Machine is an open source Linux PC built on AMD architecture. It is available in 512GB and 2TB models. The front body panel can be DIY replaced. It runs SteamOS by default, but dual systems can be installed.

Picture | Steam

As for more specific parameters, the Steam Machine uses a 6-core 12-thread Zen 4 architecture processor, a 28CU RDNA3 independent graphics card, 8GB DDR6 video memory, and 16GB DDR5 memory.

Judging from this performance configuration, the new version of Steam Machine adopts a very similar idea to the Steam Deck: it is not a "next generation console" pursuing the last 10% performance improvement, but a capablewithin a reasonable budgetA daily gaming companion that produces good graphics.

The TDP of the Steam Machine is about 110W, which is almost an ultra-low-power ITX computer | TheVerge

Although the Steam Machine claims to be able to run all Steam games, its specifications are still somewhat unsatisfactory:8GB of video memory – that’s really not enough in 2025。

Digital Foundry pointed out during the hands-on experience:

The GPU level of Steam Machine is close to that of RX 7600. Playing 3A is suitable for 1080P high image quality or 2K medium image quality. 8GB of video memory will bring many fundamental limitations.

Using the RX7600 for simulation, the Steam Machine can run "Cyberpunk 2077" at 1080P high quality at about 70 frames, and "Black Myth: Wukong" at 1080P high quality at about 30 frames.

RX 7600 GPU Performance Reference

Because of this, its transmission specifications are not outrageous. The Steam Machine is equipped with one DP 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0 interface. Although it can support 8K 60Hz or 4K 120Hz, judging from the performance of the Steam Machine, most games are currently not satisfied with these specifications. It is not unreasonable not to support HDMI 2.1.

Picture | Steam

In addition, Valve is a typical example of "coming from the player community, to the player community". Regarding the interface selection of the Steam Machine, Valve provides a 4A1C configuration. The two interfaces located directly in front of the host are both USB-A, which can be perfectly compatible with 95% of current peripherals - including keyboard and mouse.

Picture | Steam

But why should a host support keyboard and mouse? This has to mention the real foundation of Steam Machine, SteamOS.

Since the original Steam Machine overturned ten years ago, Valve has confirmed its underlying logic for designing game hardware:There is no hope of waiting for game manufacturers to proactively adapt Linux-based SteamOS. The focus should be on how to better make Linux compatible with Windows games.。

Picture | Steam

The results of this strategy are obvious to all: the Proton compatibility layer running on Steam Deck has evolved from being stumbling when it was first released to being seamlessly compatible with most games in the Steam library."Playing games with Linux" is no longer an outrageous scenario。

With such technical foundation, integrated products like Steam Machine that can take into account the diversity of the Windows game library and the convenience of a game console that can be used at any time will naturally appear.

As for why the configuration is conservative, it can be understood that this is also Steam's insight into community users. We can see on the Steam official website that the most common configuration for Steam users is Nvidia's 60 series graphics card, accounting for more than 20%, which is almost the same as the performance of Steam Machine. There are many more players whose PC configuration is far lower than this. A Valve engineer said:

One of the reasons we chose this configuration is that it will effectively be an upgrade for most Steam users.

The launch of Steam Machine also marks that the Steam game library will move from the study room to the living room, which is not good news for Microsoft and Sony.

Although GameStop just stated that "the console war is over" two weeks ago, Valve announced to the game console field in this seemingly deliberately chosen way:The console war of "exclusive content" is indeed over, your opponent now is the entire PC game pool。

In fact, whether it is this year's "Halo" landing on PS or Sony's push to open first-party games on Windows, it has clearly sent a signal: selling games is more important than selling consoles. The end of the console war is actually a reconciliation.

And Valve’s exit with the Steam game library is an attempt to eliminate the gap between PC and console content——

I no longer need to buy a computer to play PC games and a console to play "limited-time exclusive" console games. Anyway, they will meet in Steam sooner or later. Buying a SteamOS console will solve my dilemma.

As for the price, considering that Valve claims that the new Steam Machine "will be competitively priced compared to PCs with similar configurations," the price of this small console running SteamOS is not expected to be very expensive.

Referring to other small-sized and high-performance game console products, if the price of Steam Machine can be controlled below 0, it will be a very cost-effective choice. However, due to storage price increases in the next few years,Maybe 0-00 would be its actual price。

Steam hasn’t given up on VR, and wants to embrace Android

In addition, the two new peripherals released this time with the Steam Machine also have very unique features, such as the Steam Frame, a wireless VR headset designed for game streaming:

Picture | TheVerge

With the success of "Half-Life: Alyx" in front of them, Valve may be said to be the company that best understands VR games in the world, and their understanding of VR headsets has also opened a clear gap with other products on the market.

The most important selling point of the Steam Frame is its lightness. It weighs only 440g in total and is equipped with two 2160 x 2160 pixel LCD displays, supporting a 72-144Hz variable refresh rate, and a 21.6-watt-hour battery.

The battery capacity of this battery is about half that of the original Steam Deck, and the battery life used to support pure video streaming can reach 2-3 hours. You can also choose to sacrifice some portability and plug it in with a power bank to increase the single use time to about 4-5 hours.

Picture | TheVerge

But the point of this VR headset isn’t performance—that’s not to say it doesn’t have performance, of course.Steam Frame can transpile and run some PC games using the built-in Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor(Battery life will also drop to less than two hours) - Its focus is wireless streaming.

The USB transmitter that comes with Steam Frame can stream on a 6GHz channel, and with the new "Foveated Streaming" technology, Steam Frame can dynamically allocate the picture bit rate, and through eye tracking,Always keep the image at the focus of the user's eyes in a high bitrate state, to simultaneously improve the simulation effect and reduce transmission delay.

Focal point streaming renderings｜Steam

As for the selling price, Valve has only told upstream media that "Steam Frame will be cheaper than the previous VR headset Valve Index", that is, no more than 9, and is expected to be launched in 2026.

It is worth mentioning that since the hardware of this VR device is very close to that of an Android phone and it also supports sideloading APK applications, many people will also be curious about whether SteamOS will adapt to the Android ecosystem in the future.

Pierre-Loup Griffais, the engineer responsible for Steam Deck and SteamOS, said:

Steam Frame has paved the way for SteamOS to run on a wider variety of Arm devices.

In addition, the new Steam controller "Steam Controller" released by Valve this time is also a very player-oriented product.

Picture | Steam

At first glance, the new controller looks like a smaller version of the Steam Deck controller, with the control layout adopting the most versatile horizontally aligned rocker scheme while retaining the iconic controller trackpad.

The new Steam controller uses a TMR electromagnetic rocker, which has further improved durability compared to Hall rockers, extending the service life of the controller to a level that is hard to match with the Switch 2——

The service life of the Steam Controller is obviously very long-lasting. This is not to say how durable its hardware is, but that behind it are thousands of customized controller solutions from the Steam player community: Want to use a controller to play Oka? no problem. Want to play Duckkov with a controller? Still no problem.

Picture | Steam

In terms of functionality and flexibility, the Steam controller is naturally not a problem. It has a pressure sensor solution similar to that on Pixel phones built into the controller, allowing users to "pinch the controller to start gyroscope aiming." Playing high-intensity FPS with the controller may not be a dream.

The new version of the Steam Controller also has some ingenuity in terms of connectivity. The Steam Puck it comes with is a two-in-one wireless receiver/charging base device, and can connect to a full range of devices from PC to Steam Deck, from Steam Machine to Steam Frame:

Picture | The Verge

Like the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, the specific price and release date of the new Steam controller have not been announced. According to V, the three new products announced this time will be officially released in early 2026.

From Steam Deck to Steam Machine to Steam Frame, Valve now has a complete ecosystem of PC gaming hardware.

The entry of Steam Machine also shows that the game industry is by no means a pure hardware competition, and the competition between platform ecology is the key.

Picture | Steam

After all, whoever can provide a better gaming experience, richer game selections, and more flexible play methods will have an advantage in this new game console war.Valve’s biggest advantage is that they have a library of games that almost all PC players can’t live without.。

From another perspective, the console war is not over, but the battlefield has changed.