Valve Reveals A New Steam Machine, Controller, And VR Headset In A Huge Hardware Announcement

Valve has revealed a trio of new hardware items, including the Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame, all of which are set to release in early 2026.

Dropping an announcement out of thin air, Valve has started our calm Australian morning with the bombshell reveal of three new hardware items set to expand the Steam ecosystem in a big way.

The trio of gaming dips is headlined by the Steam Machine, which is essentially Valve’s answer to a console or a living room gaming system. The six-inch cube is a compact form factor PC designed to run your entire Steam library of games, no matter where you plan to play them. The announcement trailer (below) and Steam’s website claim that the box is six times more powerful than the Steam Deck, and targets 4K gaming at 60fps thanks to its onboard semi-custom AMD CPU and GPU, bolstered by FSR upscaling.

As far as input and output are concerned, the Steam Machine will feature a 1 Gigabit Ethernet port, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, one USB-C and four USB-A ports. The hardware will also offer two storage size options at launch: 512 GB and 2TB. The little box will obviously run SteamOS, making it look and feel like the Steam Deck, and will support streaming to other devices, such as the Deck and Frame (more on that in one sec). To make purchases easier, Steam will introduce a new option in its verification program to label games as “Steam Machine Verified.” Oh, and if it wasn’t already obvious, the Steam Machine is a PC, so you’ll be welcome to run reports and create spreadsheets on it when you’re not using it to play Ball x Pit.

The next cab off the rank is the Steam Frame. This new, wireless VR headset is lightweight and far more compact offering looks to prioritise ease-of-use over all else, with camera tracking removing the need for sensors, and a wireless adapter removing the need for cords that will either get in your way, or have you planted on your face. The headset will feature what Valve is calling Foveated Streaming, which uses eye-tracking to improve the visual quality of whatever you’re directly looking at, creating a sharper image in that area. The headset will ship with two Steam Frame controllers that are equipped with all of the features you would expect from a VR handset (motion tracking, thumbsticks, face buttons, etc). Impressively, the Steam Frame will also be able to run certain games natively, as it runs SteamOS, and comes packed with 16GB of RAM in order to play games directly from the headset.

Last, but not least, is the Steam Controller. Much like the Steam Machine, we’ve seen Valve take a swing at a controller in the past with…mixed results. This new Steam Controller appears to be a significant improvement, albeit in an unusual form factor. The button and thumbstick layout takes the symmetrical PlayStation approach, but it’s what sits beneath the traditional two sticks, four face buttons, and a d-pad that makes this controller stand out visually. Bringing a bit of that Steam Deck design across, the Steam Controller features two trackpads directly below the thumbsticks, letting players control an on-screen cursor without the need for a mouse. It will, in theory, allow you to play just about anything, even if it doesn’t support controller commands, but it does make the handset look a bit cumbersome. The controller also features rumble support, magnetic thumbsticks, gyro controls, and four back buttons.

You can watch the Steam Hardware Announcement trailer here:

We don’t have any pricing info at this stage, and the closest thing we have to a release date is “early 2026.” That said, if Valve can somehow avoid an astronomical price point, there’s a good chance that the Steam Machine will make a decent splash in the market. Steam, as a platform, is enormous, and focusing on ease of use when it comes to PC gaming away from a desk is clever, especially when all reports on the next Xbox suggest that it will effectively be a PC with Xbox branding.

What are your thoughts on Valve’s new slate of hardware? Let us know in the comments or on our social media.