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Graham Hall
2025-11-16 21:53:15 -05:00
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title: 'Notes on the Steam Machine'
pubDate: '11/16/25'
tags: ['Gaming', 'Tech']
---
The big news in the tech and gaming worlds this past week is Valve announcing [their new Steam Machine](https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine). While I don't have any immediate desire for it, I am fascinated by it as a gamer and tech enthusiast, and I'm very curious to see where it goes. There is a non-zero chance I pick one up at some point in teh future, depending on how things shake out – with both the Steam Machine as a product, and the gaming industry as a whole.
Up until now, I never had any interest in Valve's hardare products. Despite being a big handheld gamer, the Steam Deck did not appeal to me in the slightest. While it's certainly an impressive piece of kit, they sacrificed too much of what attracts me to handheld games in favor of raw power. The size, battery life, and relative complexity of the software ecosystem[^1], make the Steam Deck a non-starter for me.[^2]
The Steam Machine, by virtue of being a decidedly non-portable device, solves 2 out of the 3 issues I have with the Steam Deck. And honestly, depending on how well the hardware performs, and how much they can improve Proton (their compatibility layer for running Windows games on Linux), software compatibility might not even be that big of an issue.
Whatever happens, it's not going to replace my PlayStation 5. But gaming has been going through a weird period, the hobby has been trending more expensive, even if you don't factor in tariffs affecting the price of hardware. By the time the PlayStation 6 rolls around, something like the Steam Machine, which could potentially have access to the last 15-20 years of gaming in addition to all the latest titles, might be a far better value proposition.
[^1]: I'm primarily talking about software compatibility. For the Switch, any game on the eShop will 100% be compatibile, but not every game on Steam will work on the Steam Deck.
[^2]: Incedentally, these are the same things that have made the Switch 2 less appealing to me