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Do you remember Valve’s brief foray into the console market back in 2017? No? Don’t worry, most people have forgotten about it. Well, except for Valve, because they are bringing the Steam Machine back in early 2026.
The announcement came today, a tiny 6-inch cube that packs a semi-custom AMD Zen 4 architecture processor with six cores and twelve threads, clocked up to 4.8 GHz with a 30W TDP. Then there’s the semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU with 28 compute units, running at a maximum sustained clock speed of 2.45 GHz with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM and a 110W TDP. Valve is claiming the GPU is six times more powerful than the Steam Deck, and its armed with AMD’s FSR tech. Then there’s 16GB of DDR5 RAM packed into it as well.
Storage comes in two flavours: 512gb or 2TB. Both versions come with a microSD card slot, though.
All of this runs on the SteamOS, something which Steam Deck users will be very familiar with. That means it has quick resume, Steam cloud saves and full Steam library compatibility, with any game that is already verified for the Deck being automatically verified for the Steam Machine as well.
Windows will also be an option on the machine, again just like the Steam Deck. That helps ensure compatibility with games that requires Windows, like Battlefield 6.
Cooling is handled by a fan on the rear of the machine. In fact, Valve hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat told Eurogamer that the machine was almost built around the fan.
You’ll be able to pick up the Steam Machine with or without Valve’s new version of the Steam Controller, too.
But what about pricing and a release date? Both pieces of information are missing in action, I’m afraid. All of Valve’s new hardware is scheduled for early 2026, but no pricing has been revealed, and neither has an exact date.
What we do know is that Valve will sell the new Steam Machine directly on Steam, just like it did with the Deck.
So, what do you think? Valve’s last Steam Machine didn’t go well, but they’ve found plenty of success with the Steam Deck, and maybe this time around, the time is right for a console/PC hybrid. Hell, maybe we’re looking at the next Xbox, since this is almost exactly where Microsoft seems to be going.
