Valve confirms: Steam Machine will go on sale this summer along with a new VR headset

When last November Valve unveiled a trio of new hardware, it promised a launch as early as the beginning of this year. However, hopes for a timely market arrival gradually faded. First, due to a global shortage of memory chips, the company postponed price announcements, then in May, only the Steam Controller arrived independently, and the rest of the products were still awaited. Now Valve confirms that the gaming cube Steam Machine and the Steam Frame VR headset will go on sale this summer.

Going on sale this summer

The confirmation of the date did not come in any major press release. Valve hid the information in a post primarily dedicated to extending the compatibility level system (the well-known “Verified” badges from Steam Deck) to Steam Machine and Steam Frame. Between the lines, the company wrote that both devices will start selling this summer. However, the specific day or month is still unknown.

Since I’ve brought it up: The compatibility level system will work the same way as with Steam Deck. It will tell customers directly on the game page how the given title will run on the new hardware and whether anything needs to be configured. According to Valve, the criteria for Steam Machine are almost identical to those for Steam Deck and focus on a seamless experience right after the first launch: whether the default controller settings work and whether the game runs well with default graphics. For the Steam Frame headset, similar rules apply to playing directly on the device, for both VR and classic titles.

Valve states that tens of thousands of games have already passed compatibility checks with Steam Deck, and if a game runs well on the Deck, it will also run on the more powerful Steam Machine. Furthermore, games that failed on the Deck due to processor or graphics performance are, according to the company, already being retested on the new cube.

Steam Machine: A PC cube for your TV

We already provided hardware details in a separate article, so just a quick summary. The Steam Machine is a black cube measuring approximately 15 × 15 × 16 cm, designed by Valve to fit into shelves under a TV. The front panel is magnetic and replaceable, with an RGB LED strip underneath that can be turned off as needed.

Inside, a semi-custom chip from AMD based on the Zen 4 architecture (6 cores, 12 threads) and RDNA 3 family graphics with 28 compute units are at work. These are complemented by 16 GB of DDR5 RAM and 8 GB of GDDR6 graphics memory. Valve claims the device is approximately six times more powerful than the Steam Deck. The goal is 4K gaming at 60 frames per second with the help of FSR upscaling technology. Storage will be offered by the manufacturer in 512 GB or 2 TB variants, with both the SSD and RAM being replaceable.

Connectivity is not an issue, although one detail is disappointing. On the back, you’ll find DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, two USB-A ports, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, and gigabit Ethernet, while the front features two more USB-A ports and a microSD card slot. However, HDMI 2.1 is missing, so you won’t achieve 4K at 120 Hz via HDMI. The entire device is powered by the SteamOS operating system, based on Linux, along with the Proton tool for running Windows games.

Steam Frame: A headset that is also a standalone computer

Steam Frame is a standalone VR headset with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 16 GB of RAM, which Valve primarily positions as a streaming device. It wirelessly sends games from a PC via an included 6GHz dongle, which bypasses home Wi-Fi and creates a dedicated channel between the PC and the headset. However, it can also run games directly on itself without connecting to anything else.

In terms of optics, the Frame will offer two LCD panels with a resolution of 2160 × 2160 pixels per eye, thinner pancake lenses, and a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz (experimentally even 144 Hz). The field of view reaches 110 degrees. An interesting feature is eye tracking for foveated streaming, where only the part of the image you are currently looking at is transmitted in high quality. The design is modular: the unit itself with optics weighs only 190 grams, while the battery and speakers are carried by the strap. When streaming, the battery lasts several hours; during demanding standalone gaming, only about an hour.

Price is still a big unknown

However, the most important thing remains a secret – Valve has not announced the price for either device. While the company promises that Steam Machine will be competitively priced with similarly equipped gaming PCs, the year 2026 is not favorable for such promises. The global memory shortage has driven up gaming hardware prices so much that Valve even increased the price of Steam Deck this year, by up to 300 dollars. According to earlier speculations, the basic Steam Machine could be around 20,000 Czech crowns, but this is not confirmed.

Steam Machine is not a direct competitor to PlayStation or Xbox. It’s more of a compact gaming PC for people who already have an extensive Steam library and want to play in their living room. If you belong to this group and don’t mind the absence of HDMI 2.1 or the fact that games with anti-cheat protection might not run on SteamOS, it makes sense. Steam Frame, on the other hand, will be appreciated by those who want to wirelessly stream their library to a large virtual screen. However, whether the entire project succeeds or ends up like the first generation of Steam Machines from 2015 will depend on the price. And Valve is still keeping that under wraps.

Would you buy a Steam Machine or Steam Frame if they arrived in our country?

Source: Valve (1, 2, 3)