Valve's original Steam Machine was destined to flop, but I'm convinced its new version will shake up PC gaming forever

So, the Valve Steam Machine is real. Except that should really be the Steam Machine 2.0, as this is Valve's second big attempt at a console-like PC games machine. All the way back in 2013, it first revealed its Steam Machine concept to great confusion. It offered a Linux-based PC gaming ecosystem that was hugely ambitious but clearly not ready for prime time. Fast forward over a decade, and the PC landscape is very different, and, more importantly, so is the new Steam Machine. This time around, I'd be amazed if Valve's latest hardware isn't a huge success.

"Well, dur," you might be thinking. "It looks amazing. Why wouldn't it be a success?" And, I get why you might think that, but Valve's history with hardware hasn't always been as successful as the Steam Deck, and due very much to the original Steam Machine saga, many of us remember a period where Valve sticking with and making a success of its hardware launches seemed like pie in the sky thinking. Thankfully, those times appear to be over.

The story of the Steam Machine is one that dates even further back than 2013, but it was this year that Valve made public the idea for its new console-like gaming PC devices meant to revolutionize the world of PC and console gaming.

That original Machine wasn't in fact a single machine but a concept for Valve-approved gaming PCs that would run and ship with Valve's new Linux-based SteamOS. As the early version of the SteamOS that now runs on the Steam Deck, this was designed to provide an alternative, streamlined, less-bloated way of accessing your PC game library than running Windows, all while providing a living room-friendly interface with its Steam Big Picture mode.

It's worth remembering the PC landscape at the time, as this was the era of Windows 8. As one of the most maligned Microsoft manifestations, Windows 8 forced on PC users a new touchscreen-centric interface and many of the more bloated, intrusive-feeling features that have infested Windows ever since. It was no surprise that Valve saw this as a great opportunity to provide gamers with a far simpler way to just get straight to their games.

Valve worked with a host of PC manufacturers to produce a wide range of systems, ranging in price from as low as $499 all the way up to $1,500. This gave users a great deal of choice, but it also points to two of the reasons why the first Steam Machine failed: scale and price.

The mistake Valve made was thinking it could compete with Windows gaming PCs directly, hoping that a little more convenience in accessing your games would counterbalance the loss of familiar Windows functions, apps, and broader compatibility with other game launchers. People might have been willing to make all those compromises at a lower price, but at $1,000+, the audience just wasn't there, causing us to ask at the time who on Earth the Steam Machine was even for. Many cheaper versions were also released, but they were still expensive and had seriously compromised specs.

In contrast, while the Steam Machine price isn't yet official, expectations are high that Valve will follow the Steam Deck and price the Steam Machine at a level that's competing not with PCs, but with consoles, perhaps even selling them at a slight loss to hopefully make back its money in game sales, just like the console makers do. If the Steam Machine price is anything south of $800, it will be effectively the cheapest desktop gaming PC you can buy, and one that will vastly outperform other PCs close to that price range, all while offering theoretically more versatility than a slightly cheaper games console.

In the current landscape, Valve could potentially even push the Steam Machine price to $1,000 and still make that seem like a decent deal, while dropping its price to $600 or lower would make it an effectively essential purchase.

Unlike the original Steam Machines, Valve is also the only company with skin in the game. Ask Dell, Origin PC, or HP to produce your hardware while undercutting their own PC prices, and they'll want some serious kickback, and all the while you present a more confusing lineup to buyers. The new Steam Machine is a simpler proposition and a Valve product through and through.

What's more, by focusing on producing Steam Machine itself, Valve can operate at scale. Spread production across dozens of manufacturers as it originally did, and each can only produce a small number of units with minimal opportunities for streamlining production, negotiating with manufacturing partners for better rates on components, and all the other benefits that come from producing millions of units rather than a few thousand. Produce them all itself and save a few million in production costs, and Valve can afford to start dropping that final product price.

Another reason the original Steam Machine failed - other than the arrival of Windows 10 in 2015 calming the nerves of many Windows gamers - is that, at the time, the hardware wasn't yet right. Back in 2013 (or 2015 by the time units shipped) we were in an era when 4K was in its infancy and high-end desktop graphics cards would do very well to hit 100fps at 1440p

Moreover, technologies such as upscaling didn't exist to help push resolutions higher while maintaining decent image quality. Yes, upscaling and frame generation have their detractors, but the former in particular has revolutionized the accessibility of playing at 4K, without having to fork out for an RTX 5090.

All this, and the original Steam Machines weren't shipping with the flagship GPUs of their era. Just like with the new Steam Machine, Valve was envisioning Steam Machines being compact, living room-friendly gaming units, so the likes of the Alienware Steam Machine launched with modest GPUs, such as the Nvidia 860M mobile GPU, which would struggle to hit 30fps at 1080p in some games.

Fast forward to today, and the new Steam Machine ships with an AMD GPU that, while it essentially has the same modest specs as the mobile version of the AMD Radeon RX 7600, is powerful enough for Valve to claim 4K at 60fps performance, and - crucially - it can tap into the potential of upscaling (and possibly frame generation in the future, too).

Even if you're not generally a fan of upscaling for use with a mouse and keyboard on a 1080p desktop setup, for playing games more casually on a TV with a controller at 4K, it really does work wonders. We've seen just how effective upscaling can be with the Steam Deck, where its very modest GPU sometimes can't even run games at the native resolution of its little 1,280 x 800 screen. However, engage upscaling on its small, pixel-dense display, and you can get playable frame rates and a great gaming experience.

Now, some early hands-on impressions have suggested the Steam Machine can't always hit its claimed 60fps at 4K, and that dropping to 1440p or 1080p is required to get a truly smooth feel in some games. However, that's still impressive performance that is likely to prove ample for most gamers using the Steam Machine with a TV and controller.

But perhaps the biggest factor suggesting the Steam Machine will be a huge success is simply that the Steam Deck did it first. We're all now familiar with the idea of a console-like experience truly being delivered by a piece of Valve hardware. The fast standby and wake up, the slick interface, and, of course, the vast Steam Deck game compatibility mean we can all be confident that thousands of our favorite games will be at our fingertips the moment the Steam Machine launches.

Back when the Steam Deck launched, this was all up in the air, and Valve still had some work to do. Our original Steam Deck review pointed out a host of little bugs, game incompatibilities, and general complaints. However, the overarching appeal of what the Steam Deck offered - true, portable PC gaming at an amazing price - was enough for us all to support Valve as it went about fixing all these issues. Had the new Steam Machine launched before the Steam Deck, initial support might not have been anywhere near as strong.

Now, with a hardware revision under its belt with the Steam Deck OLED, years of firmware and software tweaking, and a huge amount of work with and support from game developers, we have a SteamOS ecosystem that is ready to roll. I, for one, won't hesitate to snap up a Steam Machine the moment they're expected to go on sale early next year.