New Steam Hardware
After months of rumors and some pretty convincing hardware leaks, Valve has announced new Steam hardware to be released in "early 2026." In particular, they are releasing a Steam Controller, an updated Steam Machine, and a VR headset called the Steam Frame.
Last Wednesday, I was walking my dog when I got a Discord notification from the Refurbished Steam Deck Notifier server that I joined earlier this year. Originally, I joined to watch for refurbished Steam Deck restocks before I bought my own. After I got one, I turned off restock notifications but stayed in the server in case friends were interested. With individual restock notifications disabled, I didn't frequently get updates from this server. I considered leaving the server entirely, but after I read the alert, I'm glad I didn't.
"Valve announced new Hardware for next year!
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware"
The thumbnail showed a VR headset, a controller, and a box. I was ecstatic. The VR headset I expected. There was talk on Reddit a few months ago, discussing the "Steam Frame" name, with several users being pretty confident it would be a VR headset. It makes sense; the name lines up with the device, and virtual reality gaming is big right now. Why wouldn't Valve get involved. The controller and the updated Steam Machine, though? I didn't see those coming at all.
"The Steam Hardware family officially expands in early 2026.
Steam Controller. Steam Machine. Steam Frame.
Powered by Steam, optimized for gaming in any form. And just like Steam Deck, all are designed to help players get even more out of their Steam Library."
I discussed back in August how I would love to see Valve create a new Steam Machine. It's funny how little I had to wait before I would get to see confirmation of that. Furthermore, part of the reason that I wanted a new Steam Machine was so that Valve would create a standalone controller in the style of the Steam Deck. Lo and behold...
A Steam Controller really wasn't very far-fetched anyway. Back in November of LAST year, there was a Reddit post and Tweet with a render of the Steam Controller 2 (Codename: Ibex) as found in the SteamVR drivers. The final version as shown in the announcement seems to be pretty darn close to that thumbnail image.
I don't know exactly what "early 2026" means, or when Valve will start allowing pre-orders, but I definitely added each of the new hardware devices to my Steam wishlist just to keep a check on them. And since there will be plenty of discussion in the coming months as we await more details from Valve, I figured I can go ahead and throw out my perspective and theories on each of the new devices.
Steam Controller
The new Steam Controller is perhaps the hardware that I am most excited for. Plus, it should also be the cheapest of the new devices. If the Steam Controller is $100 or less, I'll probably pre-order it as soon as Valve allows it. Ideally, I'm looking closer to the $60-$80 range. The 8Bitdo Ultimate 2.4G Wireless Controller is probably my favorite standalone controller and it's only $50 now. As long as the Steam Controller is comparably comfortable and not exorbitant in price, I would be more than willing to pay a small premium. At $100 or more, though, I could buy TWO 8Bitdo controllers for the price of a single Steam Controller.
As much as I don't frequently use the touchpads on the Steam Deck during games, they're SUPER convenient for navigating desktop mode and it makes traditionally PC-exclusive games playable on a controller. That's a big win. And I personally despise gyro controls, but maybe really good Steam execution would make me change my mind.
"The puck" is really cool for charging and wireless connection. It's very similar to the 8Bitdo Ultimate that I already have, but magnetic rather than a cradle with pins. I basically never worry about battery life because it's so easy to just drop it on the cradle once I'm finished playing and top it off. I could see the Steam Controller being very similar. However, I do hope that the puck and controller can be easily re-paired, so that if we get multiple, we can swap them around to different devices without having to move pucks and cables with us.
The one thing I would love to have seen that I don't believe has been mentioned anywhere is the adaptive triggers of the DualSense controller. I've experienced them once, and it was insane. Having a controller trigger dynamically push back against my finger until it hits a certain point is just wild. Would have been really cool to see that in the Steam Controller, but it isn't significant enough to make or break my decision to buy one.
In any case, I'm in need of a new PC controller and I love the layout of the Steam Deck controls. Smush both sides together into a normal controller size and I feel like it HAS to be good. Whether it's worth purchasing multiple of remains to be seen. That depends heavily on exactly where pricing lands.
Steam Machine
I am super excited to see how the Steam Machine performs, but I won't be an early adopter. I don't need one and I probably can't afford one. The current top model Steam Deck OLED with 1TB of storage is $650. The Steam Machine is "six times more powerful than a steam deck." Without accounting for potentially different tiers, a 6x more powerful device has got to be similar in price if not much more expensive.
For most of the gaming community, the Steam Machine is a much bigger topic of discussion than either other new hardware device. Patricia Hernandez suggests that "Valve is following the Nintendo hardware playbook, and it's working." To make another Nintendo reference, I'm seeing it called the GabeCube (and I love it). When speaking with James Archer, Valve engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais arrived at the same conclusion that I mentioned when I explained why a new Steam Machine would perform better than the original run: "a lack of SteamOS-compatible games."
Linux gaming has been, until VERY recently, pretty awful by my understanding. Very few game developers bothered creating games that ran on Linux at all. Therefore, very few people bothered buying Linux hardware for the purpose of playing games. It was a very chicken-or-the-egg problem; if nobody is making games for Linux, nobody is buying Linux machines to play games.
Valve shook up that whole dynamic with SteamOS and their Proton compatibility layer. Windows-based games could run on Linux hardware without significant work from the developers. Linux users got significantly more games available to play, so then gamers could genuinely look at Linux as a valid option. The Steam Deck was wildly successful and ramped that up to overdrive. Not only was Linux a valid option for gaming, some games seem to run BETTER on SteamOS.
This positive feedback loop has made Linux gaming SIGNIFICANTLY more mainstream. We even have AAA developers creating Steam Deck native builds for already published games. Linux gamers aren't just fringe hobbyists anymore, they are a valid driving force in the industry. HENCE, a new Steam Machine running SteamOS with much more powerful hardware in a home console-like form factor should be substantially more successful now.
The announcement goes on to say that the Steam Machine is "powered by a discrete semi-custom AMD GPU." In my opinion, this is both good news and bad news. It's good news in that a discrete GPU is going to be naturally more powerful than the APU in the Steam Deck, and semi-custom means we definitely won't be paying Nvidia prices. However, I'm worried that semi-custom may also mean that the graphics aren't quite as plug-and-play as the latest Nvidia cards. Perhaps this shouldn't be much of a concern, as Valve did amazing things with the APU in the Steam Deck, but I want to brace myself for the worst.
Obviously, no pricing details have been announced yet, but I'm targeting something close to $1000 for the entry model. I'm certainly hoping it's much lower, but performance is probably the number one complaint that I hear about the Steam Deck. Valve is definitely not going to make a device that is already obsolete before it even releases, and more power tends to require more money.
According to the official specifications, there are only two models, identical except for included NVMe SSD storage. The smaller option is 512GB and the larger option is 2TB. I can't say I'm surprised that 512GB is the minimum, and I fully expected a 2TB option with games constantly growing larger, but the absence of a 1TB option is puzzling. Alas, if they follow the pricing structure of the Steam Deck, the larger model will be $100-$200 higher than the smaller model.
🛠️ Tech Specs Overview
General Specifications
Connectivity
I/O Ports
Size and Weight
Software
As much as I would LOVE to pre-order a Steam Machine immediately, I'm just not in the market for a new gaming device right now, nor do I expect to be in early 2026. It's money that could be better used elsewhere for me. However, I do plan to accumulate blood donation money in my Steam wallet the way I did to buy my Steam Deck. If the Steam Machine can be acquired for $500 or less, I'll buy one as soon as I have enough in my wallet. If it's closer to a grand the way I'm expecting, I'll still save up but I'll hold off for some other incentive. Maybe there's a deal next year for the Winter Sale. Maybe they release a special edition. Either way, I need more of a reason to spend THAT much money on a new gaming device.
Steam Frame
I won't be getting a Steam Frame at this point. Full stop. I get super VR sick, and I don't really enjoy the experience of virtual reality anyway. Still, I'm really glad that Valve has gotten into the VR game. Competition is ALWAYS a good thing for consumers, and I think this will pressure other VR hardware manufacturers to innovate and improve.
As for price, I'm expecting somewhere in the $500 range. The Meta Quest 3S 128GB is $300 at Target. Walmart has the Lenovo Mirage VR S3 835 64GB headset for $180. The Meta Quest 3 512GB is $500 at most stores. Valve, as a company that exclusively targets PC gamers, is going to have to deliver some pretty robust hardware. However, they also tend to be more budget friendly than their competitors. Hence, I'm thinking they'll be close in price to the Meta Quest line, but deliver far superior hardware with a much better software experience.
It's really cool that the Steam Frame can run some games locally on the device itself or run them wirelessly from your PC for more power. It's accessible to anyone, whether they have a powerful rig already or of they're just trying to dabble in VR. Just... not me. I get SO sick just minutes after I put on a VR headset.
One curiosity that I have is the potential that the Steam Frame could function as AR glasses. The announcement video clearly confirmed that you can use a Steam Controller and have the Steam Frame display your own private screen for traditional gaming. I haven't tried AR glasses, but I am interested in the possibility. And if the Steam Frame can deliver similar functionality and more for a comparable price, that might be a worthwhile purchase for me.
Steam Deck 2
Although the announcement video does not provide explicit details about the successor to the Steam Deck, there are some inferences we can make and some information from Valve engineers available.
"Obviously the Steam Deck's not our focus today, but the same things we've said in the past where we're really interested to work on what's next for Steam Deck… the thing we're making sure of is that it's a worthwhile enough performance upgrade to make sense as a standalone product. We're not interested in getting to a point where it's 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life. We want something a little bit more demarcated than that. So we've been working back from silicon advancements and architectural improvements, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what the next version of Steam Deck is going to be, but right now there's no offerings in that landscape, in the SOC landscape, that we think would truly be a next-gen performance Steam Deck."
Pierre-Loup Griffais
So from that quote, we can gleam a few things. First, a Steam Deck successor isn't coming any time soon. It won't be an incremental bump, it will be significant improvement aligned with silicon and architectural shifts. We haven't seen those silicon and architecture updates yet, so they'll naturally have to pre-empt a new Steam Deck.
Second, we don't have official confirmation that there will be a "Steam Deck 2" explicitly. I've heard theories that Valve simply wouldn't make a new Steam Deck, and that they would instead defer that to third party manufacturers. It's a proven business model, Google did something similar with the Chromebook Pixel, but I don't anticipate that being the case here. In fact, this new cohesive branding under Steam Hardware, and the three new devices, I fully expect to see a new Steam Deck successor made by Valve in the future.
As for naming specifically, there's some gray area there. Valve already had the Index as a VR headset, but then they make the Steam Frame. Sure, there are distinctions between the two, but they're both VR-auxiliary. If the new Steam Deck is basically the same device and platform, just with newer and more powerful hardware under the hood, "Steam Deck 2" makes sense. If they change more and evolve their handheld offering, maybe they give it an entirely new name.
The burning question for most is "when?" I don't think we'll see anything until 2027 at the earliest. Pretty much all of 2026 is going to be devoted to the three new devices. And the fact that Steam Deck can be used to play more demanding games from the Steam Machine via Steam Remote Play, I think there's still a selling point for it. By 2027, I think we could see some pretty significant improvements in computing technology, so Valve may start development on a Steam Deck successor to be released around 2028-2029.
If these new devices are "shipping in early 2026," they have to be nearly ready. Valve wouldn't commit to a firm estimate like that without a high level of confidence that they could hit it. The question is when they'll allow pre-orders to start. I am watching closely, and I can't wait to hear more information on these exciting new devices.
References
Archer, J. (2025, November 13). Why a new Steam Machine when the first ones flopped? because this time, valve say, it’ll actually have games. Rock Paper Shotgun. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/why-a-new-steam-machine-when-the-first-ones-flopped-because-this-time-valve-say-itll-actually-have-games
Gartenberg, C. (2021, March 31). The DualSense’s adaptive triggers show how to make a button feel next-gen. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22360812/ps5-adaptive-triggers-dualsense-button-next-gen-immersion
Hennett, J. (2025a, April 16). Buying a steam deck. Buying a Steam Deck. https://jakehennett.blogspot.com/2025/04/buying-steam-deck.html
Hennett, J. (2025b, August 20). Steamos home console. SteamOS Home Console. https://jakehennett.blogspot.com/2025/08/steamos-home-console.html
Hernandez, P. (2025, November 12). Valve is following the Nintendo Hardware Playbook, and it’s working. Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/valve-steam-machine-cube-design-nintendo-gamecube-size/
Lewis, C. (2025, September 23). Baldur’s Gate 3 is easier to play on your steam deck than ever before. Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/baldurs-gate-3-native-steam-deck-build/
Lynch, B. (2024, November 26). Ibex rendermodel thumbnail leaked in SteamVR drivers. X (formerly Twitter). https://x.com/SadlyItsBradley/status/1861543924470251771
Orland, K. (2025, June 25). Games run faster on steamos than Windows 11, ARS testing finds. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-steamos-than-windows-11-ars-testing-finds/
u/HelloitsWojan. (2025, September 3). R/steam on reddit: Valve registers a “steam frame” trademark for New Computer Hardware. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1n7p8ht/valve_registers_a_steam_frame_trademark_for_new/
Valve. (2025, November 14). Steam hardware. Welcome to Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
Yin-Poole, W. (2025, November 12). Valve says it has a “pretty good idea” of what Steam Deck 2 is going to be, explains why it’s holding off for now. IGN. https://www.ign.com/articles/valve-says-it-has-a-pretty-good-idea-of-what-steam-deck-2-is-going-to-be-explains-why-its-holding-off-for-now
I'm really eager to see what the launch price is and how long it takes to get refurbished models avaliable. I'll probably make another post later to break down a rough guess for refurb price. If it's a significant discount, I'll probably pick up the steam machine then.
ReplyDeleteDoes the controller come with a hard shell carrying case? I really hope it does.
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