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Valve Enters the Console Wars (theverge.com) 100

Posted by msmash from the second-time's-the-charm dept.
Valve has unveiled a new Steam Machine console, taking a second shot at living room gaming a decade after its 2015 Steam Machine initiative failed. The 6-inch cube runs Linux-based SteamOS but plays Windows games through Proton, a compatibility layer built on Wine that translates Microsoft graphical APIs.

Valve spent over a decade working on SteamOS and ways to run Windows games on Linux after the original Steam Machines failed. The device promises six times the performance of the Steam Deck handheld using AMD's 2022-2023 technology. In an interaction with The Verge, Valve demonstrated Cyberpunk 2077 running at settings comparable to PS5 Pro or beyond on a 4K television. The console updates games in the background and includes automatic HDMI television control that Valve tested against a warehouse of home entertainment equipment. The system navigates entirely through gamepad controls and resumes games instantly from sleep mode.

Valve said pricing will be "comparable to a PC with similar specs" rather than subsidized like traditional consoles. PCs with similar GPUs have cost roughly $1,000 or more. Linux currently plays Windows games better than Windows in side-by-side tests.

Valve Enters the Console Wars More | Reply

Valve Enters the Console Wars

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  • All I can say is... (Score:4, Informative)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @03:57PM (#65791184)

    Shut up and take my money!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      At least wait to see if this is enshitiffied version of Steam. I hope not, but they could easily go Roku way with this.

      • Sure it's possible but what in the history of Valve makes you think they might? Besides DRM and licenses vs. ownership, which some object to on principle, Steam is one of the most user-friendly services around.

      • I'm sure it will be the exact same experience as a Steam Deck, just slightly cheaper since it doesn't need a display or dock to connect to your TV.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        Valve don't have enough employees to enshitify things. They have to concentrate on making things work.

      • Because they've got to please the legions of non-existent shareholders?

        Steam is a private company. There's really no push for the kind of moves that lead to service degradation elsewhere- Steam is already the undisputed king of games distribution- so they have no need to artificially lower costs to gain market share.

        Stream already commands a 30% cut of game sales and adds so much value that their market-place is a no brainer to publishers.

        Enshitification is a thing, but it has specific reasons. Steam checks

        • Minor nit to pick.
          I'm a shareholder of a private company. Private company does not mean no shareholders- that's a single proprietorship.

          In practice, privately held LLCs are beholden to the same kind of shareholder pressure that a publicly traded company is- just without the game of Court Of Public Opinion added in.

          • Right, but my understanding is that the only shareholders at Valve are Gabe Newell (50%) and his wife. (50%)

            I have no idea how true or up-to-date this info is- Happy to discuss or be corrected- but right now my point stands.

            • You're probably either correct, or correct enough.
              As in- I'm sure the Newell's have controlling interest, either way.

              Like I said- minor nit.
              Private company != don't have to answer to shareholders. As a shareholder of a private LLC, I do have shareholder rights, and the Board and officers do have a fiduciary responsibility to me.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by paulatz ( 744216 )
              Gabe Newell is 63 years old, he can still have many years to live, but he won't stay president of Steam forever. I fear that when he'll step down, the enshittification will begin.

      • At least wait to see if this is enshitiffied version of Steam. I hope not, but they could easily go Roku way with this.

        Err what? Steam is Steam. If you want to see *exactly* what this will look like then connect your controller to your PC and push the home button. Steam will switch to console mode. There's no reason to think this will look any different than what Steam's existing console mode has looked like for over a decade now. There's literally no reason for them to create any different product for this.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sinij ( 911942 )
          Short-term focus on monetization is the universal reason why such changes implemented across the board in multiple tech industries. Just look at automotive field, they are selling people $50K+ appliances and they are still trying to push seat warmer subscriptions and harvest your data. In the gaming industry, Bobby "packaged goods" Kotick views are the norm and not exception.
      • Then install something else? It's a full-on desktop-class PC running linux. From their site, "Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it's still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?"

  • *some* games (Score:4, Informative)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @03:59PM (#65791190) Homepage Journal

    Linux currently plays Windows games better than Windows in side-by-side tests.

    I have experienced this myself, but I have also experienced the reverse many times. There are also many games that won't run on Linux at all. Most of these have Windows kernel DRM, so I wouldn't buy them anyway myself, but I'm not the whole market.

    • True, but if enough people buy Steam machines, publishers should want to support it in order to get more sales, even if that means finding another way to handle their DRM.

      • Pretty sure DRM is meant to drive people to warezzzz where the games are free and DRM-less.

        It's like the equivalent of the serial killer watching from behind the police tape in Dexter/Other Cop show - they're compelled to do bad things and want to be stopped.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Pretty sure DRM is meant to drive people to warezzzz where the games are free and DRM-less.

          Less DRM. More anti-cheat.

          Most DRM is broken after a week - and the only reason it's kept on is usually because there are paid things that the game has (microtransactions).,

          But the anti-cheat is the bigger one, and no one cares if you warez your game if you can't play it with everyone else and everyone you can play with cheats.

    • Oddly enough at least last I heard Marvel rivals is fully supported. It can best be described as playable just because it's a relatively modern game and the steam deck is getting long in the tooth but the company does actually support it and when it's broken they've fixed it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Maybe now Steam consoles are a thing, more games will explicitly support Steam OS as a first rate experience. The user base is still small, but growing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mccalli ( 323026 )
        A worry might be SteamOS as a requirement, rather than as simple support. You could imagine kernel modules being developed for 'anti-cheat' and them running under SteamOS but not some other distro that may (justifiably) block them.

  • Let's hope that the second time is a charm. I'm for anything that helps people leave the Windows ecosystem, especially for gaming.

  • 1. Child controls - allow me to password-restrict store/purchases and limit play time.
    2. Easy way to switch accounts.
    3. No ads, no tracking, no AI bullshit. Just games.
    4. Make it very clear what is and is not compatible. Don't be shy rejecting things that run like shit.
    5. Convenient charger and visible battery level for controller. I don't want to police charging controllers and if kids run the battery out, I don't want it to ruin my evening.
    6. Let me connect keyboard to it.
    • Keyboard works fine. Also parentals controls are already supported [steampowered.com].

    • 1. Child controls - allow me to password-restrict store/purchases and limit play time.

      There and functional. I've used them when handing it over to my niece to play with.

      2. Easy way to switch accounts.

      Ya, I'm actually with you there. With standard Steam Big Picture, this isn't hard- on the Steam Deck, it is.

      3. No ads, no tracking, no AI bullshit. Just games.

      I mean, Steam.... is a Store. Advertising is.... part of a digital store.
      Really, I feel like it satisfies this requirement just fine.

      4. Make it very clear what is and is not compatible. Don't be shy rejecting things that run like shit.

      It does. Great On Deck is your list. About ~200 of my 1700 games are Great On Deck.
      Do other games work? Absolutely. But Great On Deck is their promise that it runs well, including contro

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by flink ( 18449 )

      You can switch accounts pretty easily on the steam deck. It's not as smooth as on the PS5 since it is in a settings menu, and IIRC it does a soft reboot when you do it, but it is functional. I've flipped mine to my sons account and back a few times when we were traveling. Takes about 30s or so assuming you've already provisioned the account onto the device before. It takes a couple of minutes to do the whole Steam Guard song and dance with the authenticator the first time.

  • AI is guzzling down all the RAM and hard drives so it's going to be tough for valve to source hardware at a price that's affordable.

    • Tariffs and people cutting luxuries such as games out of their budget in a tight economy are also a big challenge for Valve right now.

  • Praise Gabe, well have a new Steam Controller!

    I've got three Steam Controllers. Two of them were purchased after they were discontinued and cost me $300 a piece.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      This is the most (in fact only) interesting thing about the announcements to me. Must say I'm not sure about it - can't see how mouse+keyboard style games, which the original Stream Controller was explicitly designed to work well with, would pan out.

      I have hugely customised layouts for several games to the point where I can't imagine playing them without it - they tend to be RPG games like Skyrim and Elder Scrolls Online. It's that style of game I'm trying to imagine mapping to the new layout, and to be
    • WOAH! I love my Steam Controller and am looking forward to getting one of the new ones (mine is getting a bit worn), but I don't love it enough to spend $300.

      • Honestly, if you could configure the controller without Steam, I'd actually say the controller was worth $300. Being tied to Steam definitely is a drag.

        In my case, I needed a controller for my girlfriend, and for us to play the same games she needed a Steam controller for its flexibility too. So I spent the $300 so I could play games with her. So that's definitely worth it.

        Then when my OG controller died, I stayed on the train and got another for $300.

        • Oh. I guess $300 to keep your woman happy is entirely justified. Can't argue with that.

          Well, I do, but she usually wins.

        • Oh, I'm an idiot! Why haven't I offered to sell you mine yet? Only $150!!!
  • Only Gigagbit Ethernet in 2025 and only 8GB VRAM which was low in 2020.

    • I was going to argue against needing 2.5Gbe or more but then I remembered the size of a lot of Steam games. It will be faster over Wi-Fi in some cases.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      I have four routers and five LAN switches in my house and only one 2.5 Gb port. Which is used to connect the PC to the Wi-Fi 6 router for VR streaming.

      Most people will either connect the Stream Machine to their ISP router which likely only has Gigabit, or to a cheap LAN switch which likely only has Gigabit. There's no reason to give people a faster Ethernet port unless you expect 2.5+ Gb fibre to be common for Internet access in the next few years.

      • 2.5 GbE is cheap and common, you can find it on $100 motherboards. Switches are very cheap, even managed ones. There's simply no good reason not to use 2.5 GbE.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          So how many people do you know who have 2.5 Gb at home?

          My fibre is 150Mbps and Starlink is wi-fi so there's no reason for me to need 2.5 Gb other than VR streaming. It's not like I'm copying huge files from machine to machine inside the house.

          • So how many people do you know who have 2.5 Gb at home?

            I don't know many people these days, so I'm the wrong guy to ask. However, it's super common for people with fiber to have 2.5GbE to the routermodem. I also live in a BFE county that's just now getting fiber to ONE city, so even if I knew a lot of people, I'd still be the wrong person to ask. But I'm also not representative in general, so again, wrong person to ask.

      • >1Gbps internet is common, now.
        My organization provides 2.5-10Gbps in 4 markets across the US. We are not alone in this space.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          Good for you. Maybe Valve could have provided 2.5 Gb for those four markets across the US.

          I can get gigabit here but it's twice the price of what I have and it would mostly be idle. So why pay another $1,000 a year to download Steam games a few minutes faster?

          • Good for you. Maybe Valve could have provided 2.5 Gb for those four markets across the US.

            There are a lot more than 4. The company I work for serves 4.
            Hell, my local market (Seattle) has >1Gbps available (and ironically, we're not one of the providers)

            As I said, >1Gbps internet is common, now, and ya- it would have been cool of it had come with a 2.5Gbe interface- though, it's got Wifi6E, which can handle well over a gig, so at least there's that.

            We offer 2Gbps for ~$70 ($840/y). The prices are pretty reasonable.
            I take it you don't live near a major metro area?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by flink ( 18449 )

      Most people have 1Gb or less to their ISPs anyway. For those with a faster connection, only a slim minority will ever connect to ethernet.

    • Do you have a lot of 2.5Gb switches in your house? I don't. Don't think I know anyone who does.

      What got me was that it only supports HDMI 2.0. Spec hit 2.2 this year, and my aging 3070ti supports 2.1.

  • will they give refunds to people who get anti chea (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @04:33PM (#65791382)

    will they give refunds to people who get anti cheat bans for playing games on this?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by higuita ( 129722 )

      while some people were banned for using wine/proton, most were by accident, all cases that i know were reverted after some noise... some were really banned for using cheats and trying to use linux/wine/proton to hide it

      getting kicked from not having the anti-cheat working in wine/proton, sure... ban usually require much more (unless someone adds a stupid check or use AI ... but like i said, accidental bans)

      Also, you can know the status of the anti-cheat in linux for each game before even trying: https://are [areweanticheatyet.com]

    • will they give refunds to people who get anti cheat bans for playing games on this?

      Why not ask Steamdeck owners? It's not like this would be a new experience for Valve. You can go see exactly how this works right now based on past performance without some future uncertainty.

  • Valve is the tech company we deserve (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thecombatwombat ( 571826 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @04:40PM (#65791412)

    Seriously.

    Set aside gaming for a minute, this is a project only Valve could do. Ten years, ridiculously long time to see any results. There's a lot going on here. A lot of open source, a lot of a few individuals sticking to their guns and principles.

    The reason Valve gets things like this done, is because they are a private company. We have so few influential tech companies, that aren't out there chasing quarterly reports. Which is why most of them can't do this.

    Gabe is one of the only guys around who can get things like this done, and really shake things up for the much bigger companies.

  • Already have a couple of surplus 1TB SSDs laying about from when I decommissioned a server rack, gonna pop the case and swap out my 'Win10OS' drive and 'Games' drive and install the best distro for gaming I can find.

    Any suggestions for which distro would be the best one for Steam games?

  • I gotta be honest, when I saw the cube it looked like it was going to be a bit of a beast. Consoles have gotten so fucking gigantic lately, I guess my perception was off. But 6" is pretty good.

  • Is it really a console when it's a PC that you have control of? Valve's own videos say that it's a PC. I agree the line is a bit blurry.

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