Steam's NEW Hardware - Everything You NEED TO KNOW

So, the mad men at Valve finally did it.

The company that once released a

controller nobody liked, the console

that never quite existed, and a VR

headset that cost more than a gaming PC

is back with all three again. Except

this time, they actually seem to know

what they're doing. The message in their

announcement couldn't be clearer. This

isn't about one device. It's about

making Steam the platform that lives on

all devices. Whether you're on a deck, a

TV connected box, a VR headset that

doesn't look like a toaster on your

face, Valve wants you using Steam OS.

It's a move that quietly rewrites their

old strategy. They're no longer trying

to beat consoles. They're trying to

outdo consoles. And they're calling it

an open ecosystem, which is, I think, a

not so coded message for we're not

Apple. Please mod and hack everything.

So, Steam controllers, Steam Machine,

Steam Frame, they all run or connect to

Steam OS, Valve's own Linux-based system

built for gaming without the Windows

baggage. And because it's Valve, it

still plays nice with your other gear,

the Xbox controllers, the Razer mice,

and you know, whatever you manage to get

Steam remote play going on. Maybe a

smart fridge. I don't know. Put simply,

Valve isn't engaging in console wars or

VR gimmicks or any gimmicks. They're

doing what they have been setting

themselves up to do for decades now.

Everything. Steam is going to be on your

desk, on your couch, and in your face.

Hi folks, it's Falcon, and today on Game

Ranks, everything you need to know about

Steam hardware. So, I think it's pretty

obvious that all of this starts with the

Steam Deck. Valve's first truly

successful piece of gaming hardware. The

original deck launched back in 2022,

understanding something that only

Nintendo was really understanding at the

time. Handheld is in its prime. And

coincidentally, the deck looks quite a

bit like a much chunkier Switch, but

it's not. It's actually a solid handheld

PC that people actually want to use. It

runs Steam OS. It boots right into your

Steam library, plays most of the games

right out of the box thanks to Proton,

which is Valve's translation layer that

makes Windows games work on Linux. Um,

it's also not just portable. It's

modular, moddable, and unapologetically

a computer. People started swapping

SSDs, they would 3D print stands, they

would replace the sticks with other

stuff. And Valve didn't just allow it,

they encouraged it, which is the thing

that separated them from Nintendo. Aside

from the fact that you can play much,

much more AAA style games on it than a

original Nintendo Switch. Nintendo

doesn't want you doing anything to their

stuff. They want you turning it on and

playing games. Valve said you do

whatever the hell you want with this

thing. Then they released the Steam Deck

OLED, which fixed pretty much every

complaint short of the handheld being

very thick. I mean, it's still very

thick. It's a thick boy or girl or

whatever the hell, you know. Let's not

get into the gender of the computer

hardware. It's got a better screen,

better battery, faster Wi-Fi, cooler

temperatures, all the boring quality of

life stuff that ends up being the reason

you can't go back to the old model. It's

the rare sequel that didn't change for

the sake of change. It just refined what

worked and therefore it worked better.

So, on our end, we kind of thought, all

right, well, Steam now has the ability

to have you gaming on Steam anywhere.

That's a win. I mean, I wasn't really

thinking that was the beginning of a

strategy. If anything, I thought it was

a strategy to make PC gaming as

ubiquitous as the Nintendo Switch, which

is, by the way, pretty freaking

ubiquitous cuz it it did that. Like, it

worked. Like, you see Steam Decks all

over the place. But little did we all

suspect, it is the beginning of a

strategy. One built entirely on the

foundation of the Steam Deck. The same

interface, the same Linux base, the

controls, the input mapping, the new

hardware. None of it replaces the deck.

It extends the deck and that's pretty

freaking exciting. Like you remember the

old Steam controller was not something

to be excited about. It looked like if

you made the Sega Saturn controller much

much worse because it had unidentifiable

nonsense on it. But again, the Steam

Deck is serving as the foundation. But

but I think this is probably the easiest

example for how the Steam Deck is

serving as the foundation going forward.

The new Steam Controller takes basically

everything people like about the Deck's

grip, feel, and controls and just gets

rid of the screen. You got the

trackpads, the gyro aiming, the back

buttons, those nice magnetic thumb

sticks that Valve swears will not drift.

The specific tech is called tunneling

magnettoresistance, um, TMR for short. I

don't know what the hell that is other

than magnets. And the thing's engineered

pretty pretty nice. It's it's a very

valve controller at this point. And then

you have the puck, the magnetic charger,

um, and low latency wireless adapter.

You snap it on to charge, snap it off to

play, or you can connect over Bluetooth

or USB if you're feeling traditional.

The Puck also doubles as the bridge for

the ultra fast, low latency gameplay on

the Steam machine, meaning it's part

controller dock, part Wi-Fi thing, and

hopefully you won't lose it behind the

couch. I mean, that's that's maybe my

one complaint about this thing. Other

than that, it's awesome. Um, Valve is

claiming an absurd 35h hour battery life

on a Steam controller charge. And you

are going to be able to use this

controller on everything. You can use it

on your deck, of course, your PC, of

course, where Steam exists, but you're

also going to be able to use it with all

these other things that we're about to

talk about, as well as Mac, um, Android.

It's supposed to be the one controller

to rule them all, and it might actually

be that. Now, here's the thing. You need

a Steam controller if you're going to do

the Steam Machine, the PC console that

acts like a PlayStation. The new Steam

Machine is basically a Steam Deck

without a screen on it and some beefier

hardware in it. It's a 6-in cube, small

enough to hide behind your TV, but six

times the performance of a Steam Deck.

They've got a discrete mini custom CPU

and GPU from AMD, which they claim is

tuned for 4K gaming at 60 frames per

second with FSR doing the heavy lifting.

And apparently the thing is going to be

very quiet. Um, connectivity loaded

quite well. You got HDMI 2.0, Display

Port 1.4, four Ethernet, four USBA

ports, one USBC, built-in Wi-Fi 6E,

Bluetooth 5.3, and a built-in power

supply. It's a tiny little cube that to

me sounds like a very impressive

competitor to a console. There's even a

customizable LED strip that you can

either have display system info or you

can have it pulse with custom light

stuff. It's It's actually pretty cool.

And again, we're talking about Valve

essentially taking the handheld deck

experience to your TV, which I don't

know if you've ever tried remote play on

the TV. I have many, many times. Other

than the tiny bit of latency that is

inevitable with any remote play, uh, it

works really well on TV. The interface

is great for TV browsing. Honestly, this

is something I've been hoping that they

would do for a while. I did not expect

them to put something that was six times

as powerful as the deck out as this. I

didn't expect the Steam Machine to be

this close and yet this much further

ahead from the deck. I like it. I think

it's it's great. If it launches at a

reasonable price, I cannot imagine

gaming with something else other than my

big PC on my TV, it's going to be that.

Anywhere else is going to be my deck. I

mean, they've literally just set up the

ultimate checkmate here. But it it's not

just that they're pretty much taking

over what we all know as the mainstream

video game paradigm. To me, it looks

like we're going to be seeing Nintendo

and Valve. Like, that is what it looks

like in the future to me. I'm not saying

Microsoft and Sony are going away.

Microsoft has even announced that

they're going to do basically this same

thing, but I'm sorry. Valve is just

going to have them beat before they even

try to do anything. But it's not just

that. They're not just gunning for

consoles and PCs. They're gunning for

VR, too. The Steam Frame is the new

wireless VR headset from Valve. And it

actually looks good. Their pitch is very

simple, and it's the next two words make

me so happy. This is part of the reason

I don't like playing VR games. Wires.

There are no wires, no base stations, no

setups. You just put it on, turn it on,

and play. And it's not just for VR

games. They they're going to have nonVR

games on it. So, if you want to play

like Balders's Gate on a fake 100in

screen, you can do that. Each of the two

uh lenses for each eye is 2160x 2160

with 72 to 144 hertz refresh rates. Um

Valve isn't messing around with that

whole wireless thing. Um, this thing has

a dedicated 6 GHz adapter that creates a

private Wi-Fi 6 link to your PC separate

from your normal internet. So, you have

this ultra low latency streaming between

your PC and your headset. Like, it will

have a very specific link that it is

designed to use only for the sound and

video. That stuff will not go over your

Wi-Fi. On top of that, Valve is

introducing something they're calling

fiated streaming, which is a new

technology that uses eyetracking to have

the stream be high resolution only where

you're actually looking. So, it improves

the performance of the streaming a lot

uh in making it so that anything that

you can't really see isn't streaming at

nearly the resolution that the stuff

that you can actually focus on is. The

tracking uh is handled by four built-in

cameras. It's uh using inside out

positioning and infrared LEDs on the

controllers. So, you've got tracking

inside, outside. The controllers uh

again take more cues from the deck and

the Steam controller. Um that honestly,

it looks good to me. If that wasn't

enough, the headset is also itself a PC.

It can run games natively. You don't

have to stream them. You can put them on

a micro SD card and you don't even have

to turn on your PC. It's a portable deck

for your face. Although keeping in mind

it's not going to be as powerful as your

PC. So the streaming solution, they've

worked out that proprietary specific

Wi-Fi aside from the connectivity Wi-Fi.

Like there's actually two radios inside

the headset for um the streaming Wi-Fi

and then your traditional Wi-Fi to do

all of the things. It's actually for me

probably the best sounding version of VR

because it really sounds like minimal

setup. I really have to just say a lot

of the problem of VR is setup. You got

none of that here. But there is still

one big question left. How much? Now, it

needs to be said they have not told us.

We do not know how much this is going to

cost. We have nothing on the new Steam

machine or the Steam controller. They

just have not locked any kind of pricing

yet. Now, does that mean it's going to

be expensive? Yes and no. Probably. Like

I think if they knew that they were

going to be able to give us something

cheap, we'd know it now. Instead,

they're trying to impress us with the

hardware and then maybe we'll think

about the pricing later. But also, with

the continuing development in economic

situation, maybe there's stuff to source

that they can't necessarily nail down

exactly what the price is going to be

yet. They did say they expect the VR

headset to be cheaper than the Valve

Index, which was around a grand if I

remember correctly. Uh, they said, uh,

less than that. That's good because to

be frank, I I don't want to spend

another grand on another damn VR helmet,

even one that looks like it has all of

the convenience of this one. So,

ultimately, we don't know much about

pricing, and we don't know much about

the exact date. Like, this is 2026

stuff, but like when exactly is that

going to be? I can't imagine super long.

I don't think that they think that

they're going to hype this for a year

and release it next holiday season or

something. I don't think we're doing

that. I think we'll probably see early

2026. That's been kind of an indicated

timing and I would guess that that's

about when we'll find out the pricing as

well. So, aside from that little piece

of information we don't know, we do know

that Valve has decided to get really

serious about hardware. This is a full

lineup. They've all got like decent

names. The deck, the controller, the

machine, the frame. They aren't

competing with each other. They're all

gateways to an ecosystem that we already

know is good. Steam is easily the best

marketplace. There's a reason why it's

ahead of everybody else. Um, like, do I

like every practice that Steam engages

in? No. But they do the thing better

than everybody else. And now you're

going to have Steam on the go with the

deck. You're going to have it on the

couch with the machine or in your own

little world with the frame. And you got

a controller that ties everything

together. And I think if they price all

this stuff fairly, they're about to

clean the hell up. I like to brag about

how when everybody out there was saying

the Nintendo Switch won't work, I was on

record. Like, go back to the original

Switch reaction video. I was one of the

few people who was saying this is going

to do really well. I believe this is

also going to do really well because

this takes the type of gaming that the

Switch really can't handle,

traditionally speaking. PC beefy ass big

boy gaming and makes it so you can do it

literally everywhere. If again the the

price is right, it's a winner. But what

do you think? Leave us a comment. Let us

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always, we thank you very much for

watching this video. I'm Falcon. We'll

see you next time right here on Game

Ranks.