Valve, the company behind Steam, has just announced new Steam hardware slated for release in early 2026, with the lineup consisting of the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame and the Steam Controller
Steam Machine: The Headliner
The main attraction is clearly the Steam Machine, which is a small form factor gaming PC running on Steam OS, Steam’s custom operating system built on Linux.
SteamOS offers a user-friendly interface that is heavily optimized for gaming. Physically, it is roughly the size of a “6-inch Cube” with dimensions of 16.2cm×15.6cm×15.2cm.
It ships with a built-in Power Supply Unit, making it one of the smallest gaming PCs available. For specifications, the Steam Machine will be offered in both 2TB and 512GB storage sizes, though its storage is expandable via a microSD slot.
It will also feature a customizable LED strip that can indicate download progress or change colors. Internally, the machine will be powered by AMD, running an AMD RDNA 3 GPU paired with an AMD Zen 4 CPU that can clock up to 4.8 GHz.
Valve also announced, users can swap SteamOS for any operating system of their personal choice.
Steam Frame
The Steam Frame is described as a wireless VR headset that works as a standalone SteamOS PC. It comes with 2160 x 2160 LCD screens and supports refresh rates between 72 and 144 Hz.
Inside, it uses a 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and either 256 GB or 1 TB of storage. You can also add more storage with a microSD card. The Core module weighs 185g on its own, and the weight increases to 440g when attached to the headstrap.
Steam Controller
Separately, the Steam Controller is equipped with a gyro, capacitive touch thumbsticks, and a grip-sense feature. It is versatile enough to work with any PC or device running Steam, allowing use with the new Steam Frame, Steam Machine or Steam Deck.
By revealing the new Steam hardware lineup all at once, Valve is showing that it plans to take the gaming hardware market seriously and compete directly with the major players.
Since prices have not been announced yet, it will be interesting to see how gamers react to these devices.
