Jay Peters is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. Follow him on X for live updates on the latest in PC gaming.
The Steam Machine TV gaming PC has been my white whale—a sleek, no-drama box that turns my living room into a Steam paradise without the hassle of cables everywhere or performance tweaks mid-game.
A Compact Cube That Fits My Chaotic Life
The morning of Monday, October 27th, I started my workweek by asking my colleagues at The Verge for advice on buying a gaming PC. My dream was to find something as easy to use as the Steam Deck, which has become my primary gaming device due to its simplicity and massive catalog of PC games.
Just two days later, I walked into Valve’s headquarters and was introduced to the new Steam Machine, a gaming PC and console hybrid. It checked basically every box I was looking for.
The Steam Machine is a 6-inch cube that will comfortably fit into my small entertainment center in the corner of my living room and on my small office desk I’ve squeezed into the bedroom. Valve says its AMD GPU is more than six times as powerful than the Steam Deck, which should be great for me since most of my gaming time is spent playing less graphically intensive indies like Hades or Celeste.
There are some fun perks for the gadget nerd in me, too. It supports Valve’s customizable new Steam Controller and has a dedicated antenna that offers a low-latency connection for up to four of the gamepads. And because the Steam Machine is a Linux PC, I can also do whatever the heck I want with it—I’m even thinking about installing Windows so I can dual-boot and play games that aren’t on Linux due to anti-cheat, like Fortnite. For more on SteamOS tweaks, check out this guide from PC Gamer.
Seamless Steam Ecosystem Magic
Best of all, the Steam Machine should just work with my quickly growing collection of Steam games. It’s a game-changer for families—imagine passing the “cartridge” to a sibling without redownloading everything.
Prior to seeing the Steam Machine, I was weighing choices like using the Framework Desktop (promising, and a handle is an option!), getting a good gaming laptop (the most portable, but potentially very expensive), or just sourcing parts and building the PC myself (intimidating for a Verge reporter like me, a DIY newb).For budget PC build inspo, Tom’s Hardware has solid starter guides.
Why This Could Revolutionize Living Room Gaming
With the Steam Deck, Valve made PC gaming much more palatable to console crowds by (mostly) being something that just works. Verified games don’t need much fiddling to play great, many less-optimized games can be playable with graphics tweaks or by customizing your controls, and table stakes like a functional UI and reliable sleep and wake are all there. And it’s all wrapped up in a comfortable, ergonomic handheld. If Valve can bring that same console-like experience to a living room device, it would open up the best of PC gaming to even more people—think modded Skyrim sessions on the big screen without the desk hunch.
Valve is set to launch the Steam Machine sometime next year. It hasn’t said how much it will cost, but instead of shopping for Black Friday deals on some kind of other gaming PC, I think I’m going to save that money for the Steam Machine instead. Fingers crossed it lives up to the hype—I’ll be live-tweeting the launch as soon as details drop.
Related
- Our first look at the Steam Machine, Valve’s ambitious new game console
- Valve enters the console wars
What do you think—ready to ditch the desk for couch gaming? Drop a comment below!
