Valve announces new Steam Machine and Steam Controller

Valve has announced a trio of new hardware devices within the Steam Hardware family. These new devices build upon the platform and the success of the Steam Deck, and expand that to broader audiences.

The first major device is the new Steam Machine. The Steam Machine as a concept has existed for a decade through various devices made by other brands but this is the first time Valve is making one. It's a compact, cuboid device that is essentially a Steam Deck meant for the living room TV.

The Steam Machine runs on a semi-custom AMD chip with a 6-core/12-thread CPU based on the Zen4 architecture. It can clock up to 4.8GHz and has a TDP of 30W. The CPU sounds similar to the Ryzen 5 7400F but with a much smaller power budget. Matching the CPU is an AMD RDNA3 GPU with 28 compute units. It can clock up to 2.45GHz and has a TDP of 110W. The GPU sounds like a cutback version of the Radeon RX 7600 but with 12.5% fewer compute units and once again, a much smaller power envelope.

Valve is matching that hardware with 16GB of DDR5 system memory and 8GB of GDDR6 video memory. The system memory seems fine but we have already seen 8GB of video memory being insufficient in modern titles, even at 1080p. And Valve is promoting this as a 4K machine.

You do get some flexibility with the storage. Valve is offering 512GB and 2TB configurations, and you can also use microSD cards with the machine. The microSD cards seem like an odd choice until you realize you can just use your existing Steam Deck cards in here, or vice versa, and don't need to reinstall games that are already on the card. The SSD is also replaceable with standard M.2 drives.

The Steam Machine will offer 2x2 Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 with a dedicated antenna for controllers, dedicated 2.4GHz wireless adapter for the Steam Controller, DisplayPort 1.4 for up to 4K 240Hz and HDMI 2.0 with up to 4K 120Hz output with support for DSC, VRR, HDR, and HDMI CEC, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 2x USB-A 2.0 ports, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, and Gigabit Ethernet.

The device has a customizable RGB LED strip on the front, which can also display things like your Steam download progress. There is also a removable face plate, which can also be customized.

Like the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine will run on Valve's vaunted Linux-based SteamOS, now optimized for the TV. Just like with the Steam Deck, you will be able to download and run most of the games on Steam through its translation layer. There is also a KDE Plasma desktop interface if you want to run regular Linux desktop programs.

Valve is also launching the new Steam Controller alongside the Steam Machine. This would technically be the second-generation model, since the first one came out years ago, and much like the early iterations of the Steam Machine, didn't see much success. The new model once again takes inspiration from the Steam Deck and combines some old ideas with new.

The new Steam Controller has a similar design and layout for its joysticks and face buttons to the Steam Deck. The joysticks use Valve's second-generation magnetic technology for improved feel, responsiveness, and reliability. They also have capacitive touch surfaces to enable motion controls. The controller also has HD haptics and 6-axis gyro support.

Below the joysticks are the two pressure-sensitive trackpads. These work pretty much as you'd expect a trackpad to work, except there are two of them. You can use these to navigate the SteamOS UI or play games that support mouse input but not controller input. This was the defining feature of the original Steam Controller and this new model integrates into a traditional controller layout instead of making it the main way to play.

The controller also has buttons on the back, two on each grip, along with a capacitive touch surface that can detect when you hold the controller. The back is also where you attach the magnetic puck connector, which also works as the wireless transmitter. There is also a USB-C port for charging using normal cables.

The Steam Controller comes standard with every Steam Machine. It works natively with the Machine using a custom 2.4GHz wireless connection with 8ms full end-to-end latency, and 4ms polling rate. Four of these can be paired to a Steam Machine at the same time. You can also use this with a Windows PC over USB or Bluetooth. The battery is designed to last for 35+ hours, but it's not clear if that's over the custom wireless connection or the low-powered Bluetooth connection.

The company also announced the new Steam Frame. You can read more about it here.

The Steam Machine and the Steam Controller will go on sale in early 2026. Prices and exact availability information to come later.