A Steam Machine PC-console hybrid is coming, and it won’t be too long. Valve says we just have to wait a few more months before we find out how much the 6 x 6-inch living room gaming machine will cost.
In a late Thursday blog post, Valve wrote that it planned to ship the Steam Machine alongside its upcoming Steam Frame VR headset “this summer.” No, it’s not the specific date we were hoping for, but it’s more than the company has offered PC gamers lately, so we’ll take what we can get.
The blog post further explains what players can expect from the Steam Verified program, which maintains a list of games Valve promises will work well on the Steam Deck handheld as well as its console and headset. If a game runs well on Steam Deck, it will have a verified spot on the Steam Machine as well. Valve claims it has run tests on “tens of thousands” of Steam titles to determine whether they deserve a Steam Machine verified sticker.
The situation around the Steam Frame, an ARM-based headset running a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, is a little more complicated. Valve will allow you to play 2D games in a virtual reality environment (any augmented reality passthrough features will be in black and white only), as well as available VR titles. Any titles in the Steam Frame Standalone Verified library must have legible text, support the default controller configuration, and remain playable.
Without word on pricing, Valve is leaving consumers guessing, and I’m sure some are imagining the worst. I will still hold a spark of hope that we can see Valve’s console come in under $700, but I won’t blame you for expecting it to cost much more.
Last month, Valve launched its $100 Steam Controller as a kind of amuse-bouche for the rest of its incoming hardware. Then, in May, the Steam maker raised the price of its Steam Deck OLED handheld by nearly 50% for the 1TB model. The company is now asking $950 for 3-year-old hardware. That doesn’t necessarily mean the more powerful Steam Machine will cost more than $1,000, but all this waiting for word on price certainly isn’t a good sign.
