Why a new Steam Machine when the first ones flopped? Because this time, Valve say, it'll actually have games

"The catalogue wasn't rather there"

Among the trio of caller hardware devices Valve conscionable announced for 2026 – which besides see the Steam Frame VR headset and a redesigned Steam Controller – the caller Steam Machine is astir apt the astir surprising. Mainly due to the fact that the archetypal Steam Machines, a bid of partner-built SteamOS mini-PCs, sank similar rectangular stones upon launching successful 2015.

Designed and built wholly in-house, the caller exemplary is simply a precise antithetic proposition, though it’s not truthful overmuch the updated hardware that has Valve believing it’s clip to springiness the Steam Machine different chance. According to engineers Yazan Aldehayyat and Pierre-Loup Griffais, the biggest occupation faced by those doomed Machines was 1 that the Steam Deck’s Proton bundle has solved: a deficiency of SteamOS-compatible games.

"I deliberation a large portion of it was that the bundle was not rather ready," Aldehayyat replied erstwhile I asked what went incorrect successful 2015. "We learned from the archetypal Steam Machines that we needed to marque our developers’ lives a batch easier. So present we person Proton, right? Which is fundamentally conscionable a compatibility furniture that lets games tally connected Linux, that are primitively meant for Windows."

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Proton predates the Steam Deck by a fewer years, but the handheld was the archetypal large instrumentality to amusement what it could do, allowing punters to play the bulk of their already-owned Steam games close retired of the box. During the days of the archetypal Steam Machines, the lone reliably-running games – unless you got fortunate with other, little integrated compatibility tools similar Wine – were those that had been manually ported from Windows to Linux, connected which SteamOS is based. That meant a comparatively tiny room compared to the thousands upon thousands of Steam games that the Deck could tally astatine launch, each without needing immoderate important input from developers oregon publishers.

"Yeah, I deliberation it's truly astir the games catalogue," Griffais added. "Being capable to power your TV, footwear straight into the game, motorboat games and instal them successful a mode that meant you didn't person to instal drivers, oregon that you didn't person to cleanable up your strategy aft you installed and uninstalled a mates of games... each of those elements were there. We conscionable didn't person a truly compelling games library.

"Developers were benignant of stuck betwixt the equation of 'Do I privation to bash a clump of enactment to larboard my game? But there's not an assemblage for it that justifies this enactment yet.' So it was a small spot of a bootstrapping problem.

"The catalogue wasn't rather there, but past erstwhile we released Proton, we started to spot that inclination invert."

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

SteamOS inactive lacks autochthonal enactment for non-Steam launchers similar Ubisoft Connect oregon the Epic Games launcher. But, the Steam Deck has besides shown that it’s reasonably casual to get these moving careless – successful turn, further expanding the caller Steam Machine’s compatibility umbrella implicit games that would ne'er person played shot with the older models. And though an progressively communal blockade for the Steam Deck has been its struggles with squeezing capable show retired of technically demanding games, Valve are definite that the brawnier Steam Machine won’t autumn abbreviated connected speed.

"For Steam Deck, we had a batch of enactment to bash connected performance, but it was benignant of a antithetic angle, right? Like it was powerfulness ratio and worldly similar that,” Griffais explained. "So adjacent astir the Steam Deck release, if you're moving SteamOS connected hardware similar that, possibly the show wouldn't beryllium precisely connected par arsenic it would beryllium connected desktop. But [for the caller Steam Machine] we've done a tonne of enactment connected desktop performance, ray tracing, and each that stuff, and present we expect that each the aforesaid show advantages are presented successful much discrete GPU signifier factor."

Although I wouldn’t telephone the Steam Machine a powerhouse, it’s a damn show quicker than the Deck: portion Valve’s engies were telling maine each this, I was utilizing it to play Cyberpunk 2077 astatine 4K (upscaled with FSR 3 successful Performance mode) connected a operation of Medium settings and Low ray tracing. Between Proton and this added muscle, the caller Steam Machine mightiness beryllium a fewer months off, yet it's hard not to hold that it'll apt debar the compatibility woes that – successful Valve’s eyes – doomed its predecessors.