Valve says third-party Steam Machines may come with different levels of hardware

Valve has shaken up the gaming market with the unveiling of the Steam Machine, a dedicated PC gaming rig that is also a console.

The performance value offering of the Steam Machine is targeting the 4K 60FPS mark with FSR, and while that is very good depending on the price, we have learned the future of the Steam Machine is perhaps even more exciting. Speaking to Oliver MacKenzie from Digital Foundry, Valve software engineer on SteamOS, Pierre-Loup Griffais, said in the future we may see third-party SteamOS boxes, like the Steam Machine from different vendors with different AMD hardware inside.

This means, Valve could spawn an entire ecosystem of Steam Machines for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to take advantage of for customization purposes. An example would be MSI or ASUS releasing their own version of the Steam Machine that would feature a different AMD hardware specification, likely beefier hardware such as an RDNA 4 GPU and 16GB of VRAM. If this is the case, the Steam Machine could well and truly become a 4K 120Hz+ gaming PC/console hybrid, especially if the third-party models swap out the HDMI 2.0 port for HDMI 2.1.

Now, this isn't even taking into account the possibility of NVIDIA hardware making its way inside a Steam Machine. If Valve is angling for a third-party approach with the Steam Machine, SteamOS would hopefully be opened up to third-parties and receive a full public release. If that happens, there is a real possibility of Intel and NVIDIA APUs ending up in a future Steam Machine, which, given the hardware performance NVIDIA can offer, we could see a Steam Machine that offers gaming performance that blows current generation consoles, and maybe even next-generation consoles out of the water.

As for when we could see third-party Steam Machines, it wouldn't be until late 2026 at the earliest as Valve won't want to cut into the hype its created for its own Steam Machine. Valve is targeting Q1 2026 for the release of the Steam Machine, with there being no news on price, but considering the base model is releasing with a 512GB storage capacity, we can expect the Steam Machine to be released at quite a competitive price point that is hopefully relative to the pricing of the Steam Deck, which launched for $399.

If I were to guess the price for the Steam Machine 512GB SKU, I would say anywhere between $599 and $699, with the 2TB version coming in at $799/$899. That is without considering the potential risk of DRAM significantly hiking up the total cost of the system. Ultimately, we will have to wait and see.