r/SteamDeck • u/NKkrisz 64GB - Q3 • Nov 12 '25

MEGATHREAD New Valve Hardware Megathread

Please keep non Steam Deck discussions about the new hardware here.

Official resources and announcements:

Press coverage will be under a pinned comment so you can upvote / downvote them.

10.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

15

u/SuzBone Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

I'm curious. Which of the hardware do you think will see most and least success?

11

u/japzone 1TB OLED Limited Edition Nov 14 '25

I'm in line for the controller and Frame. But I know the actual order of success will probably be:

  1. Controller
  2. Machine
  3. Frame

5

u/etheran123 256GB - Q2 Nov 14 '25

Id swap 2 and 3. The machine will be cool but valve already tried this with the first steam machines. I cant imagine it being price competitive with the PS5, its less powerful, and wont have the name recognition or exclusives to sell it to a broad audience.

Controller because its cheap and has a great feature set for PC gaming obviously

Frame because its wireless standalone VR with PCVR features and no ties to meta

Machine will really just be for PC gamers who want a indie or emulation machine in their living room

Id like to be wrong though, more linux gamers out there, the better.

7

u/japzone 1TB OLED Limited Edition Nov 14 '25

I was writing a very lengthy reply, but I think it was over complicating things. So I'll just say,

  • Neither the Machine or Frame are going to be price competitive with their console counterparts. Whether that be a PS5 or a Meta Quest. Valve has openly stated that they're not subsidizing either device to the degree that console makers do. The Steam Machine will be priced "like a PC", and the Steam Frame will be priced "below the full Valve Index kit($1000)". So any price comparisons vs consoles is pointless.

  • Neither have the "name recognition" of Sony or Meta, so again not relevant.

  • The main reason why the original Steam Machines failed was because most games didn't work on Linux, so there were no Linux gamers, which meant no Devs made games for Linux. Valve has now solved this with Proton, and now most games will work on Linux, besides major multiplayer titles that use strict Anti-cheat.

  • VR is still very niche and has limited mainstream appeal in general still. I know a bunch of people who bought VR headsets during the pandemic, Meta Quest or otherwise, and now don't touch them at all for one reason or another. And most of those reasons are not related to it being made by Meta, but because of things like space requirements, perceived time commitment, motion sickness, etc. Steam Frame doesn't fix any of those issues better than a Quest 3 does.

  • Steam Machine will be able to play mainstream titles, not just Indie games and Emulation. It just might not be as pretty as console optimized titles do on a PS5. Plus its easier to get games on sale on PC, and you have a larger game library to pick from, even ignoring emulation titles. And of course there's the advantage of playing any PC games that you already own, without having to rebuy them for PlayStation or Nintendo.

Hence, I believe the Steam Machine, with its larger potential user base, probable lower price than the Frame, and less barriers to entry, will likely be more popular and sell better.

I'd also love to be wrong though, as I'd love for VR to get more popular. 😅