However, in a Steamworks Development post, Valve said it would be shipping “all three products this year. More updates will be shared as we finalize our plans.” Memory shortages were once again to blame, but it seems that storage is also in short supply – a knock-on effect caused by the former.

While this doesn’t necessarily mean a delay past the first half of 2026, Valve’s wording feels very deliberate here. Regardless, the shortages don’t appear to be going away anytime soon, so you have to wonder if the new Steam Hardware will even launch this year. Time will tell.

Perhaps the most disheartening part of all this is that the long-rumored Half-Life 3 was allegedly slated to launch with the new Steam Machine. It was reportedly planned for Spring 2026, likely to coincide with the initial release date. Regardless of whether this is true or not, journalists like Insider-Gaming’s Mike Straw claim that the sequel, arguably the most anticipated of all time, is indeed real.

There haven’t been too many rumors lately, though, so stay tuned for updates.

“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed,” explained Valve. “But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible.”

Further in the post, Valve has also offered more details about the Steam Machine and Steam Frame through an FAQ-like structure. Through this, the company has confirmed that streaming services outside of Steam’s Remote Play will be supported thanks to the latter’s built-in web browser. The VR headset also won’t have out-of-the-box support for the Valve Index’s lighthouse base station for more advanced player tracking. However, the modular and extensible software design of the Steam Frame will allow for users to come up with their own third-party solutions to bring in new compatibility features.

As for the Steam Machine, Valve has confirmed that it will be sharing faceplate CAD files, specs and details to ensure that third-party companies will also be able to make their own custom faceplates for the pre-built PC. The company has also noted that its RAM—DDR5 SODIMMs—and SSD—NVMe 2230 or 2280—will be accessible and fully upgradeable.

Valve’s announcement comes just a day after AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su had announced during an earnings call that the Steam Machine is on track to be launched “early this year”. In a statement. Dr. Su also projected a double-digit percentage loss for its semi-custom SoC (system-on-a-chip) business owing to the current console generation still going strong.

“In gaming, revenue increased 50% year-over-year to $843 million. Semi-custom sales increased year-over-year and declined sequentially as expected,” she said. “For 2026, we expect semi-custom SoC annual revenue to decline by a significant double-digit percentage as we enter the seventh year of what has been a very strong console cycle. From a product standpoint, Valve is on track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year.”

While Valve has been rather quiet about its pricing strategy for the Steam Machine, the company had confirmed back in November that the pre-built PC’s cost will be competitive with similarly-specced custom PCs. “I think that if you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that’s the general price window that we aim to be at,” said Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais in November.

For more on the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and new Steam Controller, here is everything you need to know.

The Steam Deck Verification program takes a number of things into account, including performance on the less-powerful hardware of the handheld system, as well as other aspects like the usability and readability of the UI on the smaller display, and whether or not it will manually require players to pull out the on-screen keyboard. The Steam Machine, in contrast, is a considerably more powerful system—referred to by Valve as being equivalent to six Steam Decks in its announcement video—and games will likely end up having an easier time running on it. Along with this, the Steam Machine also doesn’t have a tiny screen that UI and UX designers might have to account for, and keyboards are expected to be connected to it anyway since it is essentially a desktop PC.

Along with this, Yang also noted that a game being Steam Deck Verified also means that it is automatically Steam Machine Verified. “One easy rule of thumb is that if your title is Verified on Steam Deck, it will be Verified on Steam Machine,” he said. The major difference with Valve’s new set of hardware will end up being with the Steam Frame, which will likely have its own set of requirements that Yang has noted Valve will discuss with developers. He said that the company will “be going through the same rounds of testing and providing developer feedback,” as it does with its Verification program for the Steam Deck.

The Steam Machine was announced alongside the Steam Frame and the new Steam Controller in November. While the company hasn’t yet announced a launch date for the new products, it has been revealing quite a few details. Engineer Steve Cardinali, for instance, has revealed why the company went with a separate wireless protocol for the new Steam Controller to connect with a PC rather than Bluetooth.

“While Bluetooth is a great wireless connection method, we found in our testing that people’s home wireless environments and PC Bluetooth capabilities are highly variable (clogged networks, wireless interference, increased latency when using multiple BT devices, etc.),” said Cardinali, who went on to note that the new Steam Controller’s Puck “addresses these issues.”

“Another problem we set out to solve was the fact that dedicated wireless receivers that are plugged directly into the back of a PC near other USB ports can create interference issues. Adding the charging capability encourages people to leave the puck in a place where it’s likely to have minimal interference while providing a really easy charging experience,” he continued.

For more details on Valve’s new hardware, here is everything you need to know. Also check out rumours of the highly-anticipated Half-Life 3 apparently being a launch title for the Steam Machine.

But why is that? What do these new devices bring to the table that their competitors don’t? How do they integrate with your existing Steam account and devices? Are they worth your hard-earned cash?

Join us as we take a look at the Steam Frame, Steam Machine, and the new and improved Steam Controller. Prepare for some great surprises from Valve, and perhaps gain some insight into whether these gizmos are a worthy purchase.

The Steam Frame – Your Steam Library in Virtual Reality

Let’s begin with the Steam Frame. This standalone VR headset is literally a PC, and is a cool addition to the Steam lineup, bringing VR capabilities to the platform and taking the fight to the likes of the Meta Quest 3 and PSVR2. Its list of innovations is quite intriguing, thanks to its implications.

But let’s start with the obvious. This one’s packing a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ARM64 4nm mobile chipset alongside 16GB Unified LPDDR5X RAM memory, and 256GB/1TB of expandable storage options. The Frame also marks the first time SteamOS runs outside of the Steam Deck and PCs, and this version of it brings some interesting touches to the table, which we’re diving into in just a minute.

There are dual mics and pancake lenses in the front, dual integrated speakers on the sides, and a 21.6W battery in the back, while four monochrome cameras on the exterior track the Frame Controller’s positioning. You heard that right, the Frame comes with its own controllers that do the job of a full-fledged one quite well. They’re also equipped with TMR thumbsticks, which reduce the likelihood of stick drift and dead zones while being more power efficient than Hall Effect ones.

They’ve got capacitive finger sensors, haptic feedback, and about 40 hours of action from one AA battery. You could also hook the Frame up to your Steam Controller if you so desire. If you’re worried that those specs come with a hefty weight, the Frame is quite lightweight at 435 grams, making it significantly lighter than both the Meta Quest 3 and PSVR2. That’s an advantage considering that this one’s been designed for long gaming sessions, and its versatility on the software side of things.

This is where things get interesting for the Frame. Not only is it capable of running a bunch of great VR titles from the Steam store, but you also get to play any title from your Steam library that comes with gamepad support. What’s more, your expandable storage lets you install games on a MicroSD card using a PC, Steam Deck, or the new Steam Machine and seamlessly run it on the frame.

What’s more, you can also stream titles from a more powerful machine, with the Frame using a little bit of trickery to get by. It’s a technique called foveated streaming. To keep things simple, it’s the Frame’s way of ensuring you get a brilliant picture by focusing the bulk of its resources towards the frame you’re looking at while rendering other frames in the background, ready to pop up into your view should you look their way.

So, how does this new headset compare against the likes of Meta Quest 3 and PlayStation VR 2? From a headset specs, Steam Frame lands as the most “PC-style” display of the three while mixing elements from both PSVR2 and Quest 3. It’s 2160 x 2160 LCD panels per eye actually edge out both Sony’s PSVR2 (2000 x 2040 per-eye OLED at 90/120Hz) and Meta’s Quest 3 (2064 x 2208 per-eye LCD at 90–120Hz), and it goes a step further with an experimental 144Hz mode on top of the usual 72-120Hz range.

It uses pancake lenses for a slimmer shell and cleaner clarity, whereas PSVR2 sticks with Fresnel optics, trading some lens artifacts for the contrast of an OLED. Steam Frame and PSVR2 share a key high-end feature Quest 3 lacks: built-in eye tracking for foveated rendering/streaming via their IR cameras.

Quest 3 hits back on the mixed-reality side, with high-resolution RGB cameras, while both Steam Frame and PSVR2 only offer monochrome passthrough feeds from their outward-facing tracking cameras. However, the Frame takes the lead in some departments: four external mono cameras plus two eye-tracking cameras, IR support for low-light tracking, and a front expansion port that can take extra high-speed cameras or a PCIe Gen 4 module.

With all of this going for it, the Steam Frame is sure to take the fight to its competition, and perhaps even surge ahead in the process. And maybe the Steam Machine could be a part of that success.

The Steam Machine – A Capable, Console-Spec Device

The Steam Machine is six times faster than the Steam Deck, and is Valve’s answer to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, bringing a very practical form factor to the space while remaining uncompromising on its specs. How did the Machine pull that off? The answer lies in its design.

In contrast to the PS5’s imposing design, the Steam Machine prefers to keep things classy. It’s essentially a six-inch cube that acts as a gaming PC for your living room, letting you enjoy your Steam library with FSR-enabled 60fps gameplay that targets 4K resolution at 60fps. Interestingly, its design was built around the heat that its attractive spec sheet produced, and the cube’s final dimensions were decided based on optimal cooling.

With a 140mm fan and suitably placed inlets allowing for some solid heat dissipation, Valve does deserve a pat on the back for its subtle yet attractive design for the Steam Machine. But those components aren’t aiming for subtlety at all. There’s a semi-custom 6-core Zen 4 CPU, 16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, a semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU with 28 CUs, and 512GB/2TB of built-in storage, depending on the model you select. There’s also a MicroSD slot that allows you to seamlessly transfer games across your devices.

Keeping in mind that this one’s meant to be used with a TV, there are multiple input options with supported DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 compatibility, ethernet connectivity, a 10Gbps USB-C port, and four USB-A ports. That’s a lot of options at your disposal, and you even get to use this one as a PC if you like, as it’s compatible with Windows as well as SteamOS.

There’s also HDMI-CEC to let you power on your TV with the Machine, along with a sleep/wake function. It even comes with its own rest mode, letting you download games or updates in the background while it is powered down. A customizable LED on the front lets you keep track of things while it’s in this state.

Compared to a base PS5 and Xbox Series X, this Steam Machine comes across as a CPU-forward, GPU-trimmed configuration with a more PC like memory setup (kind of expected, it’s literally a PC). On the GPU side, 28 RDNA 3 compute units at a 2.45 GHz sustained clock leave it behind the PS5 and especially the Series X in sheer shader muscle, so you’d expect it to favour 1440p or slightly reduced settings versus their typical 4K ambitions unless it leans hard on modern upscalers. The memory design, 16 GB of DDR5 system RAM plus 8 GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM, also shifts priorities: it’s excellent for multitasking, but that fixed budget may become a tighter bottleneck than the consoles’ unified 16 GB GDDR6 pool as games keep ramping up technological demands.

On the CPU side, it’s a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 4 processor running up to 4.8 GHz, and should comfortably outclass the consoles’ older 8-core Zen 2 chips in per-core performance and responsiveness, even if they still have the edge in total core count for workloads.

When you think of the Machine as a device working in tandem with your Deck or Frame, it’s easy to see how switching to Steam from another platform can be an avenue to having your entire library of games at your fingertips, no matter where you are, and how you’d like to enjoy them. And speaking of enjoying your games, the new Steam Controller might have something of interest to you!

The Steam Controller – A New Touch On An Old Design

The folks over at Valve clearly haven’t given up on the original Steam Controller, but have been diligent in ensuring that their new take balances the original design with modern sensibilities. The result is a controller that looks quite capable and brings a very unique touch to its design.

With traditional thumbsticks placed atop the original controller’s dual touchpads, the Steam Controller certainly stands out. The touchpads are now ever so slightly inclined inward, a design choice that’s intended to support long-term use. Like the Frame Controller, the thumbsticks come with magnetic TMR sensors, while there are four rear buttons – a feature that the Steam Controller’s competitors restrict to their Pro versions.

There are dual high-fidelity motors taking care of the Controller’s haptics, while Valve has decided to make this one an appealing option for players who like to use their gyroscopes. Grip Sense, the Steam Controller’s onboard software, activates its gyroscopes based on how you’re holding your controller, making for a very seamless transition between your use of buttons and the gyro.

While it remains to be seen if the Steam Controller can dethrone the DualSense in this generation of gaming hardware, the fact that it now exists is certainly a sign of good things to come for those of you who do like the option of a versatile gamepad in addition to your keyboard and mouse setups.

Its included dongle makes charging it up a breeze while also allowing it to connect with up to four other Controllers with low latency for some great multiplayer fun. And with 35 hours of battery life on a full charge, you’re going to be in the thick of it for a while. If you’re worried about losing your dongle, have no fear as it clips to the back of the Controller. They really did think of everything.

From a head-to-head perspective with Sony’s DualSense and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X|S controllers, the new Steam Controller is much more of a “precision / PC input” device than a traditional gamepad. With four LRA haptic motors split between its twin trackpads and the grips, it can deliver more feedback than the Xbox’s classic rumble, and it can rival the DualSense’s advanced haptics, though Sony still has the unique edge of adaptive triggers for variable resistance.

The capacitive “grip sense” is the real differentiator, enabling mouse-like aiming and finger detection that neither console controller really matches (which is kind of a given to be fair). On the connectivity side, the low-latency 2.4 GHz puck with ~4 ms polling, plus Bluetooth and USB-C tethering, puts it right in line with or may be a tad ahead of the PS5 and Xbox controllers’ Bluetooth + USB-C options, while the 8.39 Wh built-in battery rated for 35+ hours, if true in practical situations, is simply outstanding.

A New Triple Threat?

This new step from Valve could be a welcome disruption to the gaming hardware space, forcing Sony and Microsoft to up their game as we approach a new generation of consoles in the coming years. The Frame and Machine are certainly powerful devices that bring a sort of utility that’s perfect for Steam users.

But what about the rest? Can these beasts be enough to capture some ground from some well-established, equally capable consoles? What does 2026 hold for Steam and its rivals? What will they be priced at? What will availability be like?

Time will answer those questions, but in the meantime, it’s time to wait with bated breath for a trio that’s sure to bring a lot of smiles to those who decide to pick them up.

As things stand today, the Steam Frame, Machine, and the new Controller are a welcome step in the right direction for the platform, and are capable devices with excellent value propositions for existing users while being enticing enough to catch the eye of those on other platforms.

“Gaming moves forward when players and developers have more ways to play and create, especially across open platforms,” wrote Spencer. “Expanding access across PC, console, and handheld devices reflects a future built on choice, core values that have guided Xbox’s vision from the start. As one of the largest publishers on Steam, we welcome new options for players to access games everywhere. Congrats on today’s announce.”

Spencer’s post comes just a day after Valve officially unveiled three new pieces of hardware – Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller. Of the three devices, the one Spencer is referring to the most is likely the Steam Machine, which is essentially a pre-built PC powered by a semi-custom AMD Zen 4 six-core CPU and a semi-custom AMD RDNA3 GPU with 28 compute units.

The Steam Machine has been described by Valve as being an incredibly simple PC that can be plugged in and operated by just about anyone. The system runs on SteamOS – an operating system based on Arch Linux, and the same one that also runs on the Steam Deck. Despite being a Linux-based PC, the system can also run most Windows-based titles thanks to the strength of the Proton translation layer.

The small form factor of the Steam Machine, coming in at roughly 6-inches on each side, will also likely draw quite a few comparisons between the gaming PC and consoles, which also tend to have smaller form factors when compared to full-fledged gaming PCs. Since it is essentially just a PC, however, the Steam Machine won’t be limited to just running games available through Steam. Much like the Steam Deck, the upcoming PC will also be capable of running games from third-party stores.

It is worth noting that one of the major PC gaming stores that won’t be available on the Steam Machine will be the Microsoft Store, through which players can typically buy Xbox Play Anywhere titles to get access to the games across Windows and Xbox devices. To actually get access to the store, a user would have to replace the operating system of the Steam Machine to Windows, which would likely come with its own headaches.

Valve hasn’t yet announced the pricing or launch date for the Steam Machine. However, knowing the company’s typical pricing practices, it will likely be quite competitive with not only other pre-built gaming PCs, but likely also with consoles.

Along with the Steam Machine, Valve also unveiled a new Steam Controller, as well as the Steam Frame VR headset, the latter being capable of running its own games without needing to connect to a PC.

“Yeah, we want to make it happen,” said Yang when asked whether a new Steam Controller could be in the works. “It’s just a question of how and when.” The company itself is still focusing on the Steam Deck, however.

“I think it’s likely that we’ll explore that because it’s something we wanted as well,” Yang said. “Right now, we’re focusing on the Deck, so it’s a little bit of the same thing as the microconsole question: it’s definitely something where we’d be excited to work with a third-party or explore ourselves.”

While this is far from a proper confirmation that Valve might be working on new hardware, it is possible that the company has made some headway into potential prototypes. Whether we’ll see these prototypes ever make it into a full-fledged product release, however, is a question that might take a few years to get an answer for.

Valve’s other hardware efforts haven’t fared much better either; HTC Vive, a VR headset made in collaboration with Taiwanese company HTC, was praised for its incredible tech, but always trailed Oculus and PlayStation VR; Valve Index, Valve’s own attempt at VR hardware, was, again, praised, and has seen reasonable sales in the wake of last year’s Half-Life: Alyx, but again, in terms of sales, it’s been a bit player in an already small market. Arguably Valve’s biggest successes in the hardware arena have been Steam link (a remote play extender for your Steam games) and the Steam Controller – but they were both also less than $100 apiece, indicating that Valve’s hardware success has been contingent on selling cheap hardware at best.

Which was why when Valve head Gave Newell promised some “console efforts” from Valve later in the year, the initial reaction from many was to assume that he was talking about Valve games for consoles again, rather than another Valve hardware entry to the market. Since then, a lot of speculation has centered on a potential new Valve hardware platform again, however, though the crux of the discussion has always returned to the central question – why? Why would Valve attempt to do something like this again, given how poorly their debut effort went?

To be fair, the original Steam Machine initiative may have been a total bust, but Valve did end up getting a lot from it. SteamOS, a Valve produced Linux distro, was originally developed in conjunction with Steam Machines, but has outlived those, and in turn given rise to Valve’s Proton, a compatibility layer that allows games developed for Windows to run on Linux without any extra effort or resources necessary from the developers. Big Picture Mode, Steam’s console-style UI, was developed for Steam Machines, but it ended up outliving them, and remains a popular way for users to interact with Steam to this day. Steam Link, the hardware, may have died out, but the brand and the streaming tech both live on in the form of Steam Link remote play apps for smartphones and tablets. So even while the Steam Machines themselves were colossal misfires, everything else that came out of it was extremely successful in the long run – in and of itself, one could always argue that is reason enough to justify a second attempt. 

But the whole discussion got a new interesting angle associated with it in light of recent leaks about what Valve’s upcoming hardware efforts may entail. Recent SteamDB leaks have unearthed evidence of a new Valve controller associated with a new Valve system, codenamed “Neptune” and “SteamPal” respectively. Based on some findings in this code, a lot of speculation has been recontextualized in light of the belief that Valve’s next hardware attempt may not be a set top box console such as PlayStation or Xbox at all – instead, it may be a Switch-style hybrid handheld console. Which makes things a whole lot more interesting.

You see, one important reason that Steam Machines failed was that there was literally no reason for them to exist. There was no niche that they were addressing that hadn’t already been addressed, and addressed better (and cheaper); there was no question they were answering; they were providing no utility or value that hadn’t already been provided by other devices on the market. If you were in it for PC gaming, everything a Steam Machine could do, actual PCs could do better, given that unlike Steam Machines, they ran Windows (and Proton wasn’t a thing yet back then). If you were in it for console gaming, everything Steam Machines did, actual consoles did better (especially since, again, Steam Machines couldn’t run most of the popular consoles games because they ran on Linux, and they were more expensive while providing often more compromised specs and experiences). If you were just in it to get a living room extension of your gaming PC, Steam Link did it better, while also being a fraction of the cost. If you just wanted to tinker with SteamOS or Big Picture Mode, you could already did it on your existing PC (Valve offered SteamOS for free for everyone, and Big Picture Mode was added to the Steam Client for everyone as well). So there was literally no reason whatsoever to go for a Steam Machine – it almost felt like Valve went out of its way to hobble whatever potential appeal the platform may have had by offering that same appeal elsewhere, better, cheaper.

But a portable Valve console, in the same form factor as a Switch, ends up sidestepping these problems and opening up a market for success for itself, in much the same was that the Switch itself was where traditional set top Nintendo consoles had clearly struggled to sell consistently for almost decades by the time of its release. You see, portability in and of itself is a huge selling point. There is clear utility to offering you the chance to play the exact same games you play elsewhere on the go, whether in bed, or in the bathroom, or just on the go. Portability has huge appeal – there’s a reason so many third party games sell the most on Switch, and people keep asking for Switch versions of most games even when it is clear that the Switch is far less capable than other machines those games are already on. People are willing to compromise on the graphics and presentation to get the utility of being able to play their preferred games on their own terms, rather than being tethered to a TV or monitor.

Portability in and of itself, then, adds utility to a Switch-style Steam Machine, giving Steam players an actual reason to purchase one – because buying one will let them do something that their current Steam enabled PCs can’t. And while the Steam Link app can let you stream your games on a tablet or smartphone with a paired controller, that is a significantly more compromised experience than playing games natively on an integrated package, like the Switch is (again, this is one reason for why the Switch has seen so much success even in the face of remote play offerings from, well, just about everyone else in the industry).

So a portable Steam Machine gets a reason to exist by having an actual shot at market success by virtue of providing actual meaningful utility to end users, things that the older ones never had or could. The issue, of course, is that while portability is clearly a killer app to some extent that provides actual assurance of success, it’s not enough in and of itself. The history of video games as a medium is littered with the corpses of dead portable systems, all from companies who legitimately thought they had a shot at market success, and then failed in spectacular fashion. Arguably, getting a portable gaming system right is even more difficult than getting a home console right – while there are at least five companies that have managed to deliver successful home consoles more than once, there are only two companies that managed to deliver successful gaming handhelds, period, and only one that has managed to do it with any consistency. That one company is Nintendo, who were able to survive and fend off portable competition in the market from entrants such as Atari, Sega, Sony, and even Nokia. 

So, making a system successful needs more than just it being a portable. Which means that even with a portable Steam Machine (or Steam Pal, going by that codename), Valve has their work cut out for them. There are several things they will need to do to be able to gain any traction with this hypothetical Steam handheld – though the one good thing is that many of the initial obstacles a new portable entrant might face are already surmounted due to some of the groundwork Valve has been laying down over the last few years (unwittingly or otherwise).

Let’s talk about those things that Valve needs to get done right, though. The most important factor here is price – as I’ve said several times, clearly portability is a killer app that offers a lot of utility in the gaming sphere, but it also has a hard cap in terms of the price the markets willing to pay for it. Your portable system can not be too expensive, because it simply won’t sell otherwise. The most expensive price a purely portable system has ever been able to sell at in the past is $200 – beyond that, portable systems have outright failed, with even Sony and Nintendo being unable to make $250 price points work for their handhelds.

There is, of course, always the chance that Valve makes the Steam Pal a hybrid like the Switch, so it’s not just a handheld, but can also dock in and become a home console. At that point, they give themselves some leeway to be able to sell their system at higher prices (the Switch sells at $299 currently, and rumours for the Switch Pro peg it at an even higher price point). But in general, especially given that Valve lacks the pedigree in the portable arena that Nintendo has, or even the reputation for long term support of their hardware initiatives, they can’t really afford to price the system too high. $250 is the max they can and should go – and at that point, they’re already basically consigning it to sell to a niche of presumably existing Steam customers. Realistically, with the Steam Pal, the lower Valve prices it (without it becoming a loss generating initiative to a ridiculous degree, at any rate), the better.

At least as important as the price, though, will be the library. The Switch didn’t just sell like it did because of the form factor, it got the traction and momentum that it did because of its amazing library, a significant part of which is exclusive to it. The Switch is one of the most widely supported systems of all time, and the catalog of indie, third party, and especially first party games that it has built has been the reason behind its ongoing success.

The thing is, unlike Nintendo with Breath of the Wild, Valve is almost certainly not going to be launching the Steam Pal with any big killer app exclusive game. In fact, it’s up in the air as to whether or not Valve launches any game alongside Steam Pal at all. The Steam Pal doesn’t have to launch with an exclusive, strictly speaking – even it launching alongside, say, Portal 3, which can be played on it, allowing players to play the exciting new game in the beloved franchise on the go in addition to their PCs, would be enough. But Valve is extremely slow in terms of releasing new games (last year’s Half-Life: Alyx was their first new premium release in eight years; in those intervening eight years, Valve only released two free-to-play titles, and some tech demos), and also, none of their previous hardware platforms have launched alongside new games. Steam Machines lacked any “launch title”, and so did Valve Index. So not only is it unclear, based on precedence, whether or not Valve would have a flagship launch game for a hypothetical new Steam Pal, it’s unclear that they would be able to give it any consistent ongoing game support at all. Which means the Steam Pal would end up having to succeed, largely, on the basis of third party titles.

That’s actually not the death sentence one might think it is, though. The very appeal of a Steam Pal would be that it interacts and allows continuity with your existing Steam library. In other words, the appeal is that you get to play your existing Steam games on the go, not that it’s a new system with a distinct library of its own. But this, again, requires some actual effort on Valve’s part, not just in terms of the technology (where, with Proton, they have laid down the groundwork already), but enforcement of policies for developers and publishers.

Given that by definition this Steam Pal is going to be weaker than many PCs, Valve will have to ensure it mandates a certain minimum level of optimization and, preferably, a single optimized profile of preferred settings and controls, for developers and their games. Of course, Valve and developers can then allow users to go in and start tweaking settings to their liking – after all, the very strength of PC gaming is in the flexibility it gives users, and that shouldn’t be taken away here – but a minimum baseline of optimization in terms of how the game runs, and the controls, should be mandatory for games to be allowed to be whitelisted for the device. Otherwise, you are giving users an extremely janky and poorly optimized experience, which doesn’t really make the most convincing case for itself, particularly since there’s already an existing inconvenient method to play your Steam games portably. The whole point of this kind of a Steam Pal is that by being a fully integrated package that plays your games locally, it’s giving you a more convenient, better experience overall.

The question then becomes – would developers even bother with hitting those thresholds of optimization? After all, they can just not spend the time and resources on doing that, and still sell to the existing universe of 100 million+ Steam users. Here, again, the onus is on Valve as the custodian of the ecosystem to incentivize developers to support the Steam Pal where technically feasible. While initiatives such as Proton obviously help (presuming this thing runs on a fork of SteamOS), Valve can probably try some monetary and financial incentives as well. Things like a lower cut of revenues, for example, where they take only 20% of your game sales on Steam rather than 30%, if you also make it Steam Pal compatible, is likely to make a lot more developers put in the work to make their games compatible with this new hardware. Other incentives Valve can offer can include better placement on the Steam Storefront, better co-marketing pushes, and so on. But Valve needs to do whatever it can to have these developers support the Steam Pal – otherwise, imagine a situation where, for example, Hollow Knight Silksong is available on Steam and Switch, but not whitelisted for Steam Pal. At that point, why would Steam players buy a Steam Pal when a Switch fulfills that promise better? Especially given that so many Switch games already allow cross-save with their Steam counterparts, such as Hades, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and so on?

Ultimately, that’s actually a good and concise summary of what Valve needs to do to ensure that the Steam Pal isn’t the latest in a not short line of hardware failures and misfires from them. They have to be involved and engaged with trying to make it a success. They have to actually market it, incentivize developers to make sure their games run on it, and generally make a constant, ongoing, active push for it for it to succeed. being hands-off with to – as Valve typically is, and has been in the past as well – will only cause it to fail, much like Steam Machines did. Even if it’s an actual good bit of hardware, it won’t sell without a concerted, ongoing, and coordinated push and campaign for it. Being a platform holder comes with responsibilities to generate and equally important, maintain momentum. being hands-off doesn’t do either. You end up with something like the PS Vita or the Steam Machines, which never get off the ground, because they never get the support of their platform holders once they hit the market. But if Valve does something entirely uncharacteristic of them, and if they keep pushing for the Steam Pal on an ongoing basis even after its launch, then I think the platform would stand a chance at some pretty good success, and a healthy and rich library not unlike the Switch. It can also serve as a friendlier entry point into the Steam ecosystem for many who traditionally may be daunted by PC gaming, but would be willing to get a portable – and who knows, those people might well transition to full-blown PC players in the future too.

It’s important to remember, however, that in spite of all this potential for success, one must keep their expectations properly calibrated and in check. It’s never going to become a 100 million selling Switch-level success (most importantly, it lacks the exclusive Nintendo first party games that give the Switch an edge that simply cannot be contended with by any other platform holder on the market). It probably will not even match the 3DS, which is Nintendo’s lowest selling portable system of all time. But at the very least, I can see it selling more than any other Valve hardware platform has in the past, and at least a few dozen million units, if handled right – which automatically makes it more successful than all but one non-Nintendo portable platforms ever. And, as mentioned, it has a lot of other intangible benefits as well, on the customer and developer support side both. 

Of course, right now, there are a lot of questions in the air – in addition to all the speculation I’ve already listed out, the biggest question to begin with is about whether or not this thing is even real (or if it’s indeed a portable system at all). But, assuming that this is real, and it is a portable, and that Valve plays its hand right, I think there is a legitimate chance for a Steam handheld to succeed where no other Valve hardware has in the past. Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

While the DualShock 4 can be used for PC games – Sony have even released an official accessory to ensure that players can use the PS4 controller on PC – for most PC games, the support is almost hacked in, using a variety of workarounds. For instance, the in game HUD will only ever display prompts for the Xbox controller, not the PS4 controller’s symbols and shapes, leaving players to figure out what button they should be pressing when as they play their games.

However, that will be changing soon- as Gamasutra are reporting, at Steam Dev Days yesterday, Valve’s Jeff Bellinghausen said the company is slated to release an update to expand Steam Controller configurability options to include DualShock 4. In simple terms, this means that the DualShock 4 will soon be officially supported by Steam.

Co-presenter Lars Doucet was pretty enthusiastic about this too, noting, “Believe it or not, when you use the PS4 Controller through the Steam API, it’s exactly the same as a Steam Controller. You make the exact same API calls, you only get actions, not inputs, and the Steam API takes care of everything.”

The PS4 controller will be added first because its gyroscope and touchpad makes it easy to translate Steam Controller APIs to it- however, Valve did indicate that support for other controllers would be coming soon, too.

I can’t wait to use the Wii U Gamepad on PC myself, personally.

Though it’s been significantly low key over the past year, Valve’s Steam Controller has seen a decent amount of cult success since it launched in November 2015.

Valve announced during its presentation at Steam Dev Days (as per Gamasutra) that the Steam Controller managed to sell nearly one million units. Engineer Jeff Bellinghausen noted that sales are expected to hit one million by early 2017. More than 27,000 users employ the Steam Controller daily and that Valve were looking into promoting supported titles on its store.

“One of the more direct methods is to present customers with a ‘most popular with Steam Controller’ games list. Titles on this list will be easily discoverable for both new purchasers as well as existing customers. We will also continue to run focused sales that highlight hand-picked controller-friendly titles.”

What are your thoughts on the Steam Controller? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.

Valve has been showing off its design for the Steam Controller for a little while now. For the most part, it seems as though the design and how the controller works has been met with positive reviews. Interestingly enough, the company is now doing more than just showing off its design. The company released the specs and designs for this controller, as well as some pictures, all in an apparent attempt to let other people either build their own Steam controllers or accessories for the official controller.

The company made a post on Steam where it places a Zip file that has all the information people who have the skills will need to build their own controllers. The documents are said to include all the “externally visible parts” needed. The company also posted some encouragement when it came to having users 3D print the parts needed for the controller.

For now, anything you make will be perfectly find to produce as long as you aren’t actually trying to make money off the deal. Valve did say that if people come up with some kind of add on or other accessory for the Steam Controller and they actually want to sell whatever they come up with, they will need to get Valve’s approval. Still, this move is something we aren’t seeing from Sony or Microsoft and the firm should earn some brownie points with the gaming community for opening up the plans for the Steam controller.