My first day with the Steam Machine was a mess. Instead of enjoying a worry-free game console, I spent hours troubleshooting what felt like a finicky PC. That\u2019s because the Steam Machine is <\/em>a PC, with a very important twist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since the Magnavox Odyssey came out in 1972, game consoles have been built with the same basic goal: to effortlessly play proprietary games on a TV screen. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have spent decades essentially selling the same product. A few consoles could do more, but the formula you know and love remains buy box, plug into TV, insert game, play.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Steam Machine aims to be something bigger. It\u2019s a vision of a box with fewer restrictions and an almost endless catalog of games \u2014 for those willing to spend nearly twice the price of a PlayStation 5.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s right. Today, Valve has announced the Steam Machine will start at $1,049 without a gamepad or $1,128 bundled with one, but you aren\u2019t getting a significant boost in performance over the 5.5-year-old Sony PS5 you can still buy today. Even after three price hikes<\/a>, a vanilla $650 PS5 offers sharper images in Cyberpunk 2077<\/em> and Horizon Zero Dawn<\/em> Remastered<\/em> in my tests. So how can Valve possibly charge over a grand, you might ask?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s because the Steam Machine is, let\u2019s say, a PC-plus. It\u2019s a PC that acts more like a console than any you\u2019ve used before. It\u2019s incredibly<\/em> cool and quiet, so much smaller than a PS5, surprisingly smooth, and completely navigable with any modern gamepad you own. You don\u2019t need a mouse, keyboard, or even Valve\u2019s own touchpad-equipped Steam Controller<\/a> to download, launch, or play games. Joysticks do the job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s the best attempt I\u2019ve seen at a PC that actually fits into a living room, and far better than anything I could build from parts. Valve\u2019s bet on the Steam Machine is that you literally can\u2019t build it yourself. Even if you had the design and engineering chops, Valve tells The Verge<\/em> it\u2019s selling these components at cost<\/a>, negotiating with suppliers to get you the best deal amid a memory supply and demand crisis<\/a> like the world\u2019s never seen before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But is it good enough <\/em>for $1,049? That depends on what you actually expect this PC to do \u2014 and whether Valve manages to reduce some of the lingering friction before it winds up at your door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n $1049<\/span><\/p>\n For better or for worse, the Steam Machine isn\u2019t ready for the console wars<\/a> just yet. Buy box, plug into TV, insert game, play<\/em> is not yet the reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Opening the box, I had to plug and unplug and replug the Steam Controller to control anything at all. My Denon receiver only output stereo sound, not 5.1 surround, so I had to plug it directly into my Samsung OLED. That Samsung TV didn\u2019t recognize the Steam Machine, so I had to manually enable Game Mode to get HDR and VRR. Valve didn\u2019t preinstall key dependencies like Proton that let Windows games work, so they had to download before I could play. Since I was waiting anyhow, I decided to queue up a whole bunch of game downloads and walk away \u2014 only to find half the games didn\u2019t finish, leaving me with 800GB of incomplete installs on a completely full drive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m told all of this will change, and Valve is the rare company with a history of following through. When I discovered the Steam Machine would spontaneously reboot, freeze, and throw graphical errors when I tiptoed up to its video memory limit, Valve fixed it in one day. My original Steam Deck review<\/a> is almost irrelevant because of how thoroughly Valve dealt with that handheld\u2019s issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But like with the Steam Deck, the day one experience feels incomplete and best consumed by power users. Speaking of which, I\u2019m typing this entire review on a Steam Machine right now \u2014 because, again, it\u2019s a PC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I plugged my keyboard, mouse, speakers, headset, USB hub, and two monitors into the Steam Machine, and everything just worked, giving me a Linux desktop that feels nearly as capable as the one I\u2019m dual-booting on my regular PC right now. (But much quieter.) I even got an external Blu-ray drive working by plugging it into the front ports. If you don\u2019t already have a desktop, it helps make the price more palatable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When I\u2019m gaming from the Steam Machine on my desk, a couple feet away from a monitor, it\u2019s obvious it doesn\u2019t have the graphical muscle of larger gaming desktops. But when it\u2019s under my TV, I\u2019m impressed by the Machine\u2019s gaming chops. It\u2019s no beefy gaming rig, but in almost every game I tried, I could manage a smooth, playable frame rate the same way today\u2019s other consoles do: choosing a lower resolution like 1080p and upscaling it to the 4K resolution of my TV, using AMD\u2019s FSR super resolution technique to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 1\/9<\/strong> While you won\u2019t be able to run the most intensive games at a true 4K resolution because you\u2019ll run out of video memory and graphical power too quickly, I found the Steam Machine\u2019s frame rate is incredibly stable and pairs well with TVs that support variable refresh rate (VRR). There\u2019s just<\/em> enough horsepower to, say, play Indiana Jones <\/em>or Returnal <\/em>at 1440p medium spec, or Forza Horizon 6<\/em> at 1440p high spec, or Cyberpunk 2077 <\/em>at upscaled 4K with high spec, or Shadow of the Tomb Raider<\/em> at true 4K and medium, because they didn\u2019t drop below 40fps minimum at those settings for me \u2014 that\u2019s mostly within the window where VRR syncs each frame perfectly with the TV.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I wouldn\u2019t have expected Indiana Jones and the Great Circle<\/em> in particular to feel like a great experience, as it\u2019s one of the more intensive PC games you can buy. But I\u2019ve now spent hours punching Nazis and cracking whips from my couch and I\u2019m genuinely enjoying it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I even downloaded the RAM-hungry Alan Wake II <\/em>from the Epic Games Store (via Heroic, you can install it from the Discover app on the Linux desktop) and found it playable at an 847p base resolution like on the PS5 and Xbox Series X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What bugs me is that in every case, I had to figure that out with trial and error. Unlike on a PS5, the console makers and game developers aren\u2019t yet tweaking the settings for you. There\u2019s no Steam Machine presets for any of the AAA games I\u2019ve tried, no global FSR toggle, no checkerboard rendering or PSSR like Sony\u2019s consoles use to make games look good on 4K TVs. By default, Valve has set the entire console to 1080p as a precaution, so you can\u2019t even set an upscaled 4K resolution until you override that first.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When I reviewed the PS5 Pro<\/a>, I couldn\u2019t recommend the extra spend to anyone who doesn\u2019t sit close to their TV screen. From my couch, 12 feet away from my 65-inch TV set, even my 20\/20 vision wasn\u2019t enough to see a $200 difference in graphical quality over the base PS5 model. All that mattered was that the games felt smooth, and that\u2019s how I feel about a properly configured set of Steam Machine games, too. But they absolutely do look uglier at 12 feet by default on Valve\u2019s box because of Valve\u2019s arbitrary 1080p cap. Hopefully game developers will create Steam Machine presets soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What really<\/em> kills me is that I can\u2019t yet trust the Steam Machine to properly suspend my game when I put it to sleep. Three times, I\u2019ve left a game running and found it exactly where I left it 12 or 14 hours later. But three other times, I found my game session gone, and once I found my TV running in the middle of the night. Valve nailed this with the Steam Deck, so I\u2019m hoping it\u2019s just a matter of time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And hopefully Valve will give the Steam Machine more creature comforts we\u2019d want from consoles, too:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 1\/8<\/strong> Before I conclude, here are a few more tidbits you might appreciate:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In 2022, the Steam Deck handheld began as a buggy, broken mess<\/a> I could only recommend to early adopters. One month later<\/a>, I could recommend it to savvy friends. A year of updates later, I felt comfortable recommending it to anyone who could understand the pros and cons<\/a>. By early 2024, I could recommend a Deck OLED<\/a> to just about anyone. I fully expect the Steam Machine will have a similar trajectory, because nobody does updates like Valve does updates<\/a> \u2014 its track record is impeccable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the Steam Deck didn\u2019t just open up PC gaming to people who wanted it to be portable; it made gaming PCs more affordable too. At $400 for LCD or $549 for OLED, it was the best deal in town, opening up PC gaming to those who had console money but couldn\u2019t afford a traditional gaming rig at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s not quite what\u2019s happening here. Valve explains that it\u2019s not subsidizing the Steam Machine because of its \u201cbeliefs about how healthy ecosystems are built.\u201d Sure, but that means with the Steam Machine you\u2019re paying normal PC prices, instead of what you\u2019d pay for a console. I still think this package is special and is an incredible deal \u2014 if <\/em>you plan to use it as a PC and not just a game console. I wish it existed back when I went off to college and needed a compact setup for work and play in my dorm room.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You won\u2019t hear me say that you should \u201cwait and see\u201d what the PS6 and Xbox \u201cProject Helix\u201d are like this time around. RAMageddon has made the future of game consoles impossible to predict. Word is Sony has pushed back its plans<\/a> to 2028 or even 2029, while Microsoft is rethinking the entire console business<\/a>. While the memory crisis might have impacted Valve\u2019s price, it\u2019s not like next-gen game consoles will surpass it very soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you do want a Steam Machine this year as Valve works out the kinks, don\u2019t hesitate to sign up<\/a> for a chance to reserve one. Valve tells us it was only able to secure around two-thirds of its planned stockpile due to component shortages so far. Even at this price, I expect them to sell out fast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/268581_Steam_Machine_KMcClellan_0015.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=2.4%2C0%2C97.6%2C100&w=2400\" "\\"\\"")
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