🚗 Steam Machine — do we even need it?

🚗 Steam Machine — do we even need it?

Pre-orders for the new Steam Machine have opened in Russia. The price, as usual, is eye-watering—almost RUB 200,000. To be honest, though, official Russian retailers are unlikely to see much demand. It will probably play out as it did with the Steam Deck: most of the audience will buy through grey-market imports, marketplaces, or friends abroad. Official pre-orders are mainly for the most impatient geeks.

Specifications:

• Processor: AMD Zen 4, up to 4,800 MHz
• Graphics: discrete AMD RDNA 3 chip with 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM
• Memory: 16 GB DDR5, with the number of sticks being anyone’s guess
• OS: SteamOS

💛 Verdict: a sad mid-range gaming rig

The Steam Machine concept is interesting in itself: Valve is again trying to bring Steam into the living room and offer an alternative to traditional consoles. But there are still more questions than answers. One less obvious issue is VR support. Judging by the specifications, the VR experience may be roughly comparable to PlayStation VR2 on PlayStation 5: adequate at a basic level, but with little performance headroom for demanding PCVR projects. For the hardcore VR community, this is a questionable device.

And here is my main question: why the hell do we need a Steam Machine at all? 🤔

Seriously. Instead of another box under the television, I want something entirely different. Valve, please give us a proper Steam Frame—a full-fledged VR/MR headset that has been rumoured for years. After the Steam Deck’s success, it would make more sense to move toward a market that genuinely wants a strong new player rather than yet another console form factor.

For now, it feels as though everyone is waiting for one product, and for some reason Valve keeps showing up with something else 😄