As I have been taking a small break from gaming and YouTube this week (personal story here), I missed out on the new Steam hardware announcement from last week. If you haven’t seen it, please check it out because it’s an interesting one!

Steam ControllerLink to heading

I’m not a huge controller fan, but for games like GTA, some arcade games, or racing titles, I prefer my XBOX Elite 2 controller (fun story, I bought this from Microsoft’s campus a few years ago on a trip). I do have an original Steam controller that I’ve used a few times, but again, I just don’t use a controller enough in KBM games to justify using the trackpads. I’m just keeping it as a part of fun “history”.

However, this new Steam controller looks promising. Trackpads are there if you need them, it looks like a comfortable, light weight design, including a magnetic charging “puck” (no extra purchase needed). I will definitely keep this in mind if my XBOX controller were to ever die.

My guess this will cost around $50 USD and be a hard piece of hardware to buy at first due to demand.

Steam MachineLink to heading

We’ve had mini-ITX PCs available for a long time, but nothing like what the Steam Machine offers. This is a simple, “console-like” mini PC that is simple to use, simple to purchase with 2 configurations (512GB and 1TB), and rivals the identity of a XBOX or Playstation. Probably the biggest features of this is not only playing PC games, but using any controller you want (XBOX, PS, Switch, Steam Controller), using it as a desktop PC, fantastic emulation out of the box (Switch, PS2, PS3, etc), or even using it as a home theater PC (if you can get streaming via Linux to work at full quality).

The two things that I am curious about are the performance and the price.

Valve claims that the Steam Machine can do 4K gaming at 60FPS using AMD’s FSR technology. This is obviously going to depends on what game that is being played, but I’d say that this will handle indies and most AAA titles from 2021-ish and prior with no problem. I’ll be very interested to see how it plays with games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Doom The Dark Ages. Yes, Doom TDA is a newer title with high hardware demands (ray tracing forced, boooo), but it was recently Steam Deck Verified with developer made presets. It doesn’t look pretty but it runs.

My guess on the pricing is that the base model will start at $999 USD, as I doubt it will undercut current console pricing. Valve will need to make the price as close as possible to make it a valid competitor.

Steam FrameLink to heading

Ever since the Apple Vision Pro was announced, the one feature that made me remotely interested in it was the fact that you could watch a movie, surf the web, or play a game on a virtual “screen” as big as you wanted. Apple even demoed this to where you could be in a “virtual environment”, watching your favorite content, even on the moon! This is what intrigued me the most. Imagine sitting down with a virtual headset and some noise-canceling headphones on to enjoy your favorite movie, show or video game in full immersion. This is what I want!

So Valve is making their attempt at doing some similar in that you can basically do the same thing: play smaller, indie titles directly from the headset or stream games from your PC using a Wi-Fi adapter. I’m not sure if you can stream just any game or if there are some limitations to it. I will definitely be interested to see what the reviews say and yes, the price point, as well.

There is some voodoo magic with Proton and Fex, translating x86_64 games over to ARM, that I’m pretty excited about as well.

One interesting feature of the Steam Frame is that the hardware will “focus” the graphical horsepower depending on where your eyes go. This is called Foveated Streaming. I wonder how this will work with framerates and performance. For example, if I have a powerful PC and I stream a demanding game like Doom The Dark Ages to my Steam Frame, will my framerate improve because of where I’m focusing my eyes? Will it stay the same?

My guess on the Steam Frame is going to be $1,500 USD.

Into the FutureLink to heading

As a lifelong PC gamer, I’m super excited about this new hardware, not only because it’s Valve taking the charge, but just the simplification of the whole process. Gaming is not what it used to be and in my opinion, it’s going downhill for the AAA games for various reasons. Indies are just more interesting and don’t require the best NVIDIA GPU with 10x FrameGen and DLSS just to run it at 60FPS. I do not plan to build custom gaming PCs anymore as it’s just not worth the time and money. I’d rather buy something like a Steam Machine and just play my games. I can totally see me purchasing a Steam Machine or the next version of the Steam Deck to take with me when we start doing more traveling and camping in the next 4-5 years.

Take the hardware that Valve is offering and continued support of the community, and you have some amazing possibilities coming over the next few years. Very exciting times in the tech world where technology has become pretty dull and lifeless.