In case you missed the news, Valve has announced a new iteration of the Steam Machine, which supposedly makes PC gaming as accessible as a home console.
The Steam Machine essentially acts like a home console, in that you can plug it in and start accessing your Steam library. There’s no need to faff around with drivers, updates, or internal hardware like you would with a regular gaming PC.
And it’s also small and quiet, so it should sit quite nicely in your living room TV unit.
According to Valve, the Steam Machine has around “six times the horsepower” of the Steam Deck, and “has the power to play your whole Steam library, including your favorite AAA titles”.
Altogether, it looks like Steam Machine will tap into the casual PC audience who want to play games in their Steam library but don’t like the hassle of building a computer from scratch. And it may also entice some console owners to switch over to the PC platform.
Part of this convenience comes in the fact that developers can optimise their PC builds for a specific set of hardware, guaranteeing that Steam Machine owners can run specific games right out of the box.
Valve to gazump next-gen Xbox?
This may also put Microsoft’s next-gen efforts in jeopardy. While nothing has been confirmed yet, rumours suggest that the next Xbox console could be a PC / Xbox hybrid.
Similar to the ROG Xbox Ally that was released last month, which is essentially a PC that functions like a handheld similar to the Steam Deck, the next Xbox has been rumoured to be a home console that runs a custom version of the Windows operating system.
This essentially means that it’ll function like a PC, but have the adaptability and convenience of a home console like the Xbox.
With Valve’s announcement of the Steam Machine, it seems that the publisher has already got in early to this space. The next Xbox isn’t rumoured to drop until 2027 at the absolute earliest, and is also targeting a ‘premium’ price.
So with the Steam Machine launching in early 2026 then it could very well tap into this PC / Console hybrid space before Microsoft can, which may affect initial sales of the next Xbox.
Considering other controversies that Microsoft and Xbox has landed in recently, such as the Game Pass price hike, being put on the BDS movement watchlist, or the various layoffs and studio closures that have occurred in the past year, I’d imagine the Steam Machine could prove to be a major competitor to whatever the next Xbox console will be called.
