Steam Machine, Steam Controller, Steam Frame

[alpha_q_up]

Call me a Steam Fanboy but I'm super stoked on this announcement, since getting a steamdeck earlier this year and using the trackpads and gyro on it I was wondering when they'd do a full controller(I'm glad they didn't look to their past venture in controllers)
I'm sold on the rest of what Steam has to offer.
No price range yet, ETA is early 2026

[zinger565]

Finally, this will be the year of linux!

All that aside, I'm excited for valve. Hopefully they learned a lot from the deck and this turns out good.

[Reflex0283]

headset looks super comfy, but I'm sad to see that the controllers are normal instead of being like the index controllers. They were super comfy, you could let go of them and they would still hold on to your hand

[uv_halo]

The controllers have a removable strap that will allow for the same. My favorite thing about the new controllers is the double AA battery.

[ford]

That game box is going to sell. Anything that encourages people off Windows is good with me.

[the_matrix_guy]

Dang, I like this. I’ll finally play Half Life Alyx

[vijil]

[alpha_q_up]

In Gabe We Trust

[Siress]

I’ll finally play Half Life Alyx

That was my first thought when I saw the Steam Frame - price dependent, of course. I'm probably continuing to hold out if it's over $500 for the kit.

The Steam Machine is interesting if it's under ~$600. I hope it can spit out 1080p@144Hz without upscaling so that it's viable for fast twitch games.

And another Steam Controller... interesting. I wonder if the UI to customize it's functionality has substantially improved over the old one - and if that means my old one can benefit from the new developments... I did enjoy it for a time, but it was too convoluted to keep up with when I stopped using it regularly.

This plot is going to have a lot more red in 2026, that's for sure. One thing it doesn't show is users that run both - which is nearly 100% of Linux PC users since NVIDIA doesn't provide comparable driver support for Linux, and as much as we want AMD GPUs to be competitive at the high end they're not even close.

[the_matrix_guy]

Siress

I’m intrigued to see how they push the envelope on VR technology more than anything. For me the Steam controller was never that appealing. It was always an in between solution between keyboard & mouse and a traditional console controller. I will always be a PC gamer first, and there’s simply no reinventing the wheel, so to speak, when it comes to k&m. But I’d love tk be proved wrong!

Also, for me, for games that require a controller, the Xbox controller is peak.

Linux is definitely poised to gain a little more traction —and that’s always welcomed. I am fed up with Microsoft’s BS like many of you all. Aside from the invasive ads —recently, my drag and drop stopped working, if you can believe it. I did all the different regedit fixes on YouTube, to no avail. Apparently it is a common issue. A lot of people report this problem. It’s not mouse related either. Its something fucky with the OS. I had to perform a fresh install of Windows to fix it.

Microsoft better get its shit together cause I see them losing their market leader status in the near future at this rate.

[tyronejk]

Holy shit, a regedit fix for using YouTube on a Windows machine is crazy. I think Apple does some scummy stuff, but I'm glad using a Mac isn't that bad (at least for my specific use case).

[the_matrix_guy]

@tyronejk

No, I mean I had to lookup the how-to tutorial videos on YT on how to fix it. There were different regedit fixes that were supposed to help -- but none fixed it. But yeah Microsoft is shit now. And it's not just the invasive ads, it's everything: the lack of privacy, how they basically force you to use OneDrive and make it super difficult to turn it off, just very anti-consumer all around. And then add on top of everything, new bugs, which were never an issue before...

Also Microsoft's Xbox division is a joke. They spent billions buying up some of the biggest game developers and mismanaged the whole affair from start to finish.

As a PC gamer though, you have very little choice unless you go Linux. But Apple is far-behind in the PC gaming space.

[JonM]

I've been strongly considering picking up a Steam Deck to play my backlog games, but the Gabe Cube really has my attention now.

[the_matrix_guy]

Gabe Cube lol
Golden.

[vijil]

The main thing for me is the gyro.

I bought an xbox controller for FPS games on mobile, but even smartphone touch aiming is superior to a thumbstick. I'm amazed FPS games ever became popular on console.

For me the only way the controller is useful is to attach the phone in a mount and then turn the phone gyro on. Used like that, it's great. Stick for big movements, gyro for fine aiming. Only some games actually work this way however and xbox cloud doesn't like it, so the controller just sits in my cupboard now.

The Steam controller has both touchpads *and* a gyro. It may not be as good as m/k, but that's a vast improvement on a regular controller. To me, that would be good enough - I'd be happy to play like that and forgo m/k. It's the best couch solution.

[tyronejk]

The PS3 controller has a gyro built-in and it seemed to have been largely ignored by both devs and players.

[vijil]

Yeah, I think people just don't understand what they're missing out on.

I played the halo games all the way through with just controller, but once you're used to a gyro it's impossible to go back.

[vijil]

Ugh it sucks being on this side of the world.

We take the USD price, double it, and add a bunch to get the rough grey market price.

So I'm expecting about 2000 NZD for the cube, which translates to 1120 usd. Mehh.

[russonti]

I started a project earlier this year to male my own steam machine out of an old crypto mining card before valve releases their new one. I thought I had more time. I had Fedora on it gaming for about a month. I gave up somewhere in the middle of making my own custom version of steam os with latest mesa drivers for my amd apu. I should get back to that. Maybe i lucked out and steam finally updated their mesa drivers in the os and all that custom os work was wasted. Certainly beats a thousand dollar price tag

[russonti]

I didn't try bazzite but i did try halo or whatever it was and it didn't work. My problem is with the install on to a not very common amd apu. It is actually the ps5 apu. I need the drivers available during the installation or i get stuck in a boot loop or just frozen and or crash. I tried everything and nothing got past it so i resorted to installing steamos onto my asus rog ally and tried to start creating my own custom steamos distro with the correct drivers.

[vijil]

I was under the impression bazzite is very specifically designed for gaming, therefore has loads of good drivers built in. Maybe worth a shot?

[russonti]

Thanks guys, i can't remember why i didn't try bazzite. There might have beenbm a reason or heck i might have even tried it but forgot because it didn't work like everything else i tried. That was many months and several projects ago. I'll have to figure out what i did and where i left off whenever i get my laptop back from my dad. I may first try the latest version of steam and hope they updated their mesa drivers. Then try Bazzite.

[Nish]

What are people thought on this vs the big consoles?

[zinger565]

What are people thought on this vs the big consoles?

I like it, and I like the idea of it. There's also already a ton of documentation out there on how to get 3rd party/non-steam games and launchers working on Steam Deck, and I would expect a lot of that to apply to this console.

The biggest win Steam had with the Deck, and now this, is that you already have a library of ready to play games upon purchase. If I bought a ps5 today, I'd also have to shell out who knows how much just to be able to play a few games on it, or sign up for a subscription service.

[alpha_q_up]

Ps5 + A Single game bundles are currently like 450-499$ so after taxes let's say you're in the 530-550 range just to start, along with the extra AAA game or two that another 120-150$ after taxes, if you want a few indie games another 20-40$

With that you're looking at around 670$-720$ for one controller, maybe 3 AAA games and another 2 or so indie games, oh yeah that's before the 107$ yearly Playstation Plus membership if you want to play online

[JonM]

What are people thought on this vs the big consoles?

Right now, the big three are really screwing their fans with rising prices for games, hardware, and online play. On the other hand, the Steam Machine is a PC. It has free online play like a PC, has games priced like a PC, and doesn't limit your ability to mod it or use whatever peripheral devices you want like a PC. While it may be underpowered compared to high end computers (and even the PS5 Pro), it's still going to be running Proton and optimized for the standardized hardware Valve is delivering. I'm not expecting them to price it like a console though since they said they aren't going to subsidize the cost. Whether or not it's going to be competitive remains to be seen. This thing is going to live or die based on the final cost. If it's affordable, I'm in. Otherwise, I'll just plug my ROG G16 gaming laptop into the TV and snag one of their new controllers.