Opinion

New Valve Hardware

November 23, 2025
12:58 am

Valve Announces the Steam Machine: Price Speculation, Console Wars, and the Future of PC Gaming

Last week, Valve announced three new pieces of hardware: the Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame.

Of the three, the Steam Machine is getting the most attention. It is Valve’s ambitious entry into the console wars. According to Valve, the Steam Machine will be a PC running Linux, sporting Valve’s Steam OS operating system and giving users the option of using it as a PC-gaming setup or a traditional console in the living room.

The prices for Valve’s new hardware have not yet been released; however, there has been speculation.

My Thoughts

Valve is doing the lords work and many of the things that Xbox/Microsoft should be doing. They revolutionised handheld gaming with the Steam Deck, which triggered a slew of well-designed PC handhelds from companies like Lenovo and ASUS—bridging the gap between PC and console games, and releasing exciting and cohesive gaming hardware that’s pushing the industry forward. Valve is the premier operator in the PC-gaming sector—a position Xbox is nearly entitled to—yet Valve seems better poised, especially in the sector which is one of the few growth areas in gaming (PC Gaming).

PRICE, PRICE, PRICE

One of the biggest conversations right now is the price of the Steam Machine. The Steam Machine is being marketed as a PC-console hybrid, but the pricing will really tell us which side of the coin it falls on. Here’s why.

Consoles are typically sold at a loss and subsidised by game software sales. Across the gaming industry, hardware manufacturers often receive roughly 30% of game-purchase income. The PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X and even the Steam Deck are typically sold at a loss.

By contrast, PCs are not subsidised and are instead sold at a profit. As a result, it’s normal to see a high-powered PC with a $1,000+ price tag while video game consoles remain in the $500-$600 range. The PS5 Pro broke from this strategy, selling for $749.99 and boasting performance improvements.

Personally, I’m hoping that the Steam Machine will sit in the $600-$700 range—but that’s just me.

In an IGN survey of gaming-hardware buyers, over half of respondents (52.7 %) said they would pay around $500 for the Steam Machine; about 30.4 % were willing to go up to $800; whereas only 6.4 % would pay $1,000, and just 2 % $1,200 or more. Meanwhile 8.5 % said they didn’t want the Steam Machine at all. Those figures help highlight where the demand curve currently sits — it suggests a sweet-spot around $500-$600.

Why I’m Interested

I’m a fan of Valve. I’m a proud Mac user and a gamer with no real desire to buy a full Windows PC. The Steam Deck made PC gaming easier and is on the path to being a truly frictionless PC gaming experience. I can see myself buying the Steam Machine and using it as my PC-gaming console. Even now, I sit my Steam Deck on a dock and play games from my library on a large screen.

The Steam Machine is expected to boast about six times the power of the Steam Deck. As a console gamer, I love the idea of buying a dedicated console and not worrying about installing drivers, minimum specs and Windows updates. Speaking of Windows …

Windows Has Always Been the Problem with PC Gaming

Windows has long been the pain point for PC gaming, and that’s why Microsoft’s recent announcement about future Xbox consoles adopting a high-end Windows gaming-PC architecture raised eyebrows. If that approach is truly the future, then it raises a real question: why should Xbox or even SteamOS exist as separate platforms at all? Both companies already have dedicated operating systems designed specifically for dedicated hardware, and those systems deliver a smoother, cleaner experience than Windows ever has.

We’re already seeing the results. SteamOS recently outperformed Windows on the Legion Go S in both speed and battery life. PC gaming may have started on Windows, but it has thrived the most when it has moved away from it. Windows 11 is undeniably powerful and feature-rich, but that power comes with bloat. Gaming is resource-intensive by nature, and Windows will always carry overhead that eats into hardware performance—overhead that a focused gaming OS doesn’t have to deal with.