Valve’s new Steam Machine might make me say goodbye to console gaming forever

After tearing up the PC-based gaming handheld rulebook with the Steam Deck, Valve is looking to do it all again for games consoles. The all-new Steam Machine will be competing for a place under your TV in early 2026 – and it’s bringing a new virtual reality headset along for the ride.

With semi-custom six-core AMD chipset inside, Valve reckons the small form factor Steam Machine is as powerful as six Steam Decks. It’ll have 16GB of memory, 8GB of dedicated VRAM, and either 512GB or 2TB of NVMe SSD storage, meaning there’ll be enough grunt to run games at 4K resolution and 60fps (albeit with AMD’s FSR upscaling tech). Not too shabby for a little black box measuring 162x156x152mm. The internet has already affectionally dubbed it the GabeCube.

Naturally it’ll run SteamOS out of the box, but Valve says gamers will be free to put their own operating system on if they prefer.

A customisable face plate and an LED light strip that can show your game download progress while a connected screen is switched off give it more character than a typical mini-ITX gaming PC, but it’s on par in terms of connectivity. There’s Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a MicroSD card slot, one USB-C and four USB-A ports, along with DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 for 4K 120Hz display output with HDR and variable refresh rate support.

It’ll also have a built-in wireless adapter for the new Steam Controller, which looks like someone sliced the screen out of a Steam Deck and squidged the two sides together again.

You can’t miss the two large touchpads beneath the analogue sticks, which themselves use magnetic TMR tech for better accuracy and zero chance of stick drift over time. They’re also capacitive, letting them double as motion controllers. Sensors built into the grips can then activate gryo aiming. If there’s one style of play you prefer, the Steam Controller will have you covered.

It has the usual four face buttons, bumpers and triggers, Steam and Quick Access buttons for navigating SteamOS, and a four-way D-Pad. Four additional buttons at the back then give it a level of customisation seen on pro-grade console controllers.

There’s HD rumble, Bluetooth connectivity, and the option to play wired over USB. The bundled Wireless transmitter also doubles as a charging station, magnetically clicking onto the controller to keep it topped up between play sessions. You’ll be able to pair it to a Steam Deck, any gaming PC, or the new Steam Frame VR headset.

With the Valve Index now out of production, Frame will take over as the firm’s sole virtual reality offering. It’s more of a standalone headset than the PC-based Index, using built-in tracking cameras rather than separate base stations and with enough on-board power to run games locally. It’ll also stream games wirelessly from a PC (or Steam Machine) though a dedicated dongle.

It’s physically smaller than a Meta Quest 3, with pancake lenses keeping the front half compact and two speakers on either side. The battery has been stuck at the back for the best balance. Pancake lenses sit in front of two 2160×2160 resolution LCD panels that support 72-144Hz refresh rates. Foveated rendering – a clever bit of graphics tech – uses eye tracking to render exactly where you’re looking in the highest detail, while everything else can be a little lower to reduce strain on the Frame’s GPU.

There’s a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset inside, along with 16GB of RAM and 256GB or 1TB of on-board storage. A microSD card slot lets you add more later. It’ll ship with a pair of motion-tracking controllers that include capacitive finger tracking, haptic vibration, and an AA battery good for 40 hours of gameplay.

The Steam Machine, new Steam Controller and Steam Frame headset are all set to launch in early 2026, in regions where the Steam Deck is already on sale. There’s no word on pricing for anything just yet.

It’ll be the second time Valve has sold a PC-based gaming system, having tapped up gaming PC maker Alienware (among others) for the original Steam Machine back in 2015 and pairing it with a first-gen Steam Controller. The firm has learned a lot about gaming on Linux since then, largely thanks to the Steam Deck, and way more developers are willing to support SteamOS now than they were a decade ago.

• Related: Steam Deck 2 – the features we want from Valve’s next gaming handheld