Posted by Andrew Plotkin
https://blog.zarfhome.com/2025/11/steam-machine-redux
Another Valve hardware announcement: the Steam Machine is back. I am immediately and predictably on board for it.
You might wonder what kind of idiot I am. Let's review my history with Steam hardware:
Clearly, I will buy the new Steam companion cube, stare at it for ten minutes, and shove it in a closet next to the original 2015 Steam rectangular solid. Right?
Maybe. See, Valve isn't consistently screwing up. They keep fixing their mistakes.
The mistake of the original (2015) Steam Machine was that it didn't seamlessly play Windows games. Valve then went all-in on Proton/WINE, and now the Steam Deck plays everything. Solved.
The only thing wrong with the Steam Deck is that it's heavy, bulky, the battery life is crap, and the screen is tiny... Okay, that's four things, but plenty of people clearly don't care. The Deck is a successful toy. I only notice because I'm comparing to my iPad, which is hard to beat.
And then...
Here's the thing. I have a lovely rec room upstairs. Cozy couch, big TV. (Okay, small TV by modern standards.) But I don't watch much TV since the channels all went subscription-only. A little, but not much. So the room is sad and lonely most of the time.
Aha, I thought! I will get a Steam Deck Dock, attach the unused Deck to the TV, find a controller, and make that my gaming room! The Deck's screen and battery life don't matter if it's perma-docked.
Well, it turns out that my smallish TV doesn't work great with the Deck. The TV is so old that it doesn't have gamma adjustment for HDMI in. SteamOS doesn't have gamma adjustment for HDMI out. And I was trying to play Soul Reaver 2 (for reasons), and that's also ancient, and the upshot was unplayably dark.
So that plan sort of fell through, but it wasn't Valve's fault. Entirely. I do plan to get a big dumb gamma-adjustable TV for Winterfair, and then -- couch-gaming!
...So do I really need a New Steam Machine? No, but I'll get one anyway. It'll have way more crunch than my (first-gen) Deck.
I might as well get a New Steam Controller while I'm at it. I currently use a selection of rattly (and drifty) Xbox 360 USB controllers. They're light and they never complain about battery life, but if I'm buying into Valve's package, I'm buying in.
(I got an original Steam Controller with the original Machine. It has one thumb-stick. The new one has two, which is the right number. See what I mean about Valve fixing their mistakes?)
Of course this is all subject to price, which Valve has not announced. Price will be their most important leverage against Sony and Xbox -- everyone waits with bated breath. Except me, because I gave up on the big console rat race years ago. I just want a moderately priced box that runs Windows games and I don't have to think about its insides.
I admit that I am tempted by the addressable LED strip. I started a LED-strip project a couple of years ago, but I never got it to hardware.
You are now going to ask about the Steam Frame, a.k.a. "VR will catch on, this time for sure!" Or, I suppose Valve would say: "Facebook's Quest can eat my shorts."
I admit I thought about it. For about a minute. (Longer than I thought about the Apple set.) But the fact is that there's only one game that I want to play in VR, and it wouldn't take that long to finish. Then what? Replay Myst? Again?
Whoops, I'm wrong: two VR games now. Still. Not worth buying hardware.
I'll repeat the offer I always make: sell me just the hand controllers, and a way to play those games on a regular monitor, and I will buy them like a shot.
https://blog.zarfhome.com/2025/11/steam-machine-redux
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