Steam Machine was a series of prebuilt
small form factor gaming computer
A gaming computer or gaming PC is a personal computer specifically designed for playing video games at very high graphic and gameplay configurations. Gaming PCs typically differ from mainstream personal computers by using high-performance video ...
s designed to operate
Valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
's
SteamOS
SteamOS is a Linux distribution developed by Valve. It is open source with some closed source components and is the primary operating system for Steam Machines and the Steam Deck.
The initial versions of SteamOS, versions 1.0 and 2.0, were ba ...
to provide a
game console
A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a t ...
-like experience. Several computer vendors were engaged with Valve to develop their own versions of Steam Machines for retail, offering additional options atop Valve's requirements such as dual-booting options with
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and the ability to upgrade the computer.
To support the Steam Machine and SteamOS, Valve released the
Steam Controller
The Steam Controller is a game controller developed by Valve for use with personal computers running Steam on Windows, macOS, Linux, smartphones or SteamOS. The controller was designed not only for games developed for controller users, but also ...
, a customizable
game controller
A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game, typically to control an object or character in the game. Before the seventh generation ...
with
touchpad
A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...
-based
haptic feedback, and the
Steam Link
Steam Link is a hardware and software solution made by Valve Corporation for streaming Steam content from a personal computer or Steam Machine wirelessly to a mobile device or other monitor. Steam Link was originally released as a hardware devic ...
, a device that allows consumers with Steam software to stream content to a monitor. Following a two-year testing period, Steam Machines and its related hardware were released on November 10, 2015. In 2018, many Steam Machines models were no longer offered on the Steam store.
History
Steam, a large digital store-front for video games supporting many third-party developers and publishers, was developed by
Valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
primarily for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and accounts for an estimated 75% of digitally purchased games on that platform. Valve has indicated displeasure with the approaches that both Microsoft and Apple are taking with their respective operating systems, limiting what applications could be run, and upon the release of
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
in 2012, Valve's CEO
Gabe Newell
Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), nicknamed Gaben, is an American businessman and the president of the video game company Valve.
Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early ...
called it "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space", and discussed the possibility of promoting the open-source operating system
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
that would maintain "the openness of the platform".
Newell recognized that games would need to be a significant part of the push for Linux.
An official Linux client for Steam was released in July 2012, along with developer tools to help port games to the platform.
Valve worked to assure that users' game libraries would be portable, including offering Steam Play whereby purchase of a title for one platform automatically allows that user to play the title on other supported platforms, and cross-platform multiplayer features.
Prior to Valve's official announcement of Steam Machines, rumors of Valve's plan to get into the hardware market developed in the industry throughout 2012, based on aspects such as the emphasis on the Linux operating system and the introduction of features like the
10-foot user interface "Big Picture Mode" for Steam which would be a necessary feature for a video game console. Valve formally announced that it was considering developing a
video game console
A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...
near the end of 2012. Industry journalists tentatively called the hardware a "Steam Box". It would function as a dedicated unit running Steam to allow players to launch games, media, and other functions that the client already provides. The unit's hardware was expected to be tightly controlled in a similar manner to other video game consoles.
The software side was expected to remain open; for example, the unit is expected to ship with a Linux operating system, but the user will be able to install Microsoft Windows if they want to.
![Xi3 modular computer ces2011](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Xi3_modular_computer_ces2011.jpg)
Gabe Newell explained that Valve's strategy was to develop a single hardware unit themselves as the default model, internally named "Bigfoot", and work with other computer manufacturers who want to offer the same user experience but with different hardware configurations not offered by Valve's model; for example, Valve did not expect to include an optical drive due to size and cost, but this could have been a feature offered by a manufacturing partner.
He also envisioned the software to enable
screencast capabilities, allowing the single box to work with any monitor or television within the home.
Newell stated that they would also likely develop controllers for the unit that integrate
biometrics
Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...
data from the player and options for
gaze tracking, citing that the involuntary responses from the player are more useful than other forms of player input such as
motion control
Motion control is a sub-field of automation, encompassing the systems or sub-systems involved in moving parts of machines in a controlled manner. Motion control systems are extensively used in a variety of fields for automation purposes, includi ...
.
Newell also explained that Valve is also considering the mobile device market in addition to the home console market, specifically considering laptops and tablets with their own hardware nicknamed "Littlefoot".
During the Steam Dev Days in January 2014, Valve further explained that the initial target market for Steam Machines was the living room and build a demand for support for Linux versions of games such that they can continue to work away from Windows and OS X operating systems for the future.
At the 2013
Consumer Electronics Show
CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
,
modular computer hardware company Xi3 Corporation introduced a prototype modular PC codenamed "Piston". This unit is one of several possible designs that Valve is looking as the default hardware model for the Steam Box, and is specifically designed to run Steam on Linux and support Big Picture mode. The unit is based on Xi3's "performance level" X7A model and is slightly larger than a human hand, containing various I/O ports to connect to power, video, and data signals. Xi3 began taking pre-orders for the Piston Console at the 2013
South by Southwest Festival
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
in March 2013, anticipating high levels of interest in the hardware with plans to release the unit for general purchase by the end of 2013. Valve clarified that although they conducted some initial exploratory work with Xi3, they have had no direct involvement with the Piston's specifications, and it was not necessarily representative of the final design for the Steam Box.
Valve officially revealed Steam Machines including the related
SteamOS
SteamOS is a Linux distribution developed by Valve. It is open source with some closed source components and is the primary operating system for Steam Machines and the Steam Deck.
The initial versions of SteamOS, versions 1.0 and 2.0, were ba ...
and Steam Controller during the last week of September 2013, with a tentative release date in mid-2014. On December 13, 2013, three hundred beta units of the Steam Machine were shipped to selected beta testers for initial testing. An additional 2000 units were provided to developers attending the Steam Dev Days event in January 2014. Valve also released an early restricted download link for their SteamOS for "Linux hackers" to try out. Based on feedback from these testers, Valve announced in May 2014 that they have pushed back the anticipated release until November 2015. The first set of Steam Machines, Steam Controllers, and Steam Links were available for consumer purchase and delivery starting on November 10, 2015.
Several gaming websites observed that by April 2018, Valve no longer offered links to the Steam Machine section on the Steam storefront, and while it could be reached directly via a URL, many of the models previously offered were no longer listed. Valve responded that they recognized that Steam Machines were not selling well and saw little user traffic, prompting them to make the change to the storefront. Valve stated they remained committed to an open gaming platform and will continue to develop the back-end technologies like SteamOS that will help such efforts.
Valve later revealed the
Steam Deck
The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming computer developed by Valve Corporation. Released on February 25, 2022, the Steam Deck can be played as a handheld or connected to a monitor in the same manner as the Nintendo Switch. It is an x86-64-v3 de ...
in 2021, a handheld computer designed to play Steam games running the
Arch Linux
Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a Rolling release, rolling-release model. The default installation is a minim ...
-based SteamOS. Some design factors of the Steam Deck resulted from the development and failure of the Steam Machines. As it was difficult to get developers to build for Linux systems and reach thresholds for adaption to convince manufacturers to produce Steam Machines, Valve invested into Proton, a compatibility layer for Linux to run
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
-based application and games. The hesitation of their manufacturing partners from Steam Machines also led Valve to keep development of the Steam Deck internal as to build a better product.
Hardware
Hardware units
Unlike other gaming consoles, the Steam Machine does not have a specific configuration of hardware, but a minimum specification of computer hardware components that would be needed to support the SteamOS operating system and games developed for it. Valve planned to have several different retail versions of the Steam Machine through various hardware manufacturers, that would also allow users to create their own units from components and or modify retail products with off-the-shelf parts as desired. The units were expected to arrive in 2014, with Valve expecting to announce its partners for this first line at the 2014
Consumer Electronics Show
CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
in early January.
Valve began running a beta-testing program in late 2013, selecting 300 Steam users to test their optimized prototype hardware units and initial versions of the Steam Controllers. The initial prototypes sent to testers had several configurations, which include:
* CPU:
Intel Core
Intel Core is a line of streamlined midrange consumer, workstation and enthusiast computer central processing units (CPUs) marketed by Intel Corporation. These processors displaced the existing mid- to high-end Pentium processors at the time ...
i7-4770, i5-4570, or i3
* Graphics card:
Nvidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
GeForce GTX Titan, GTX 780, GTX 760, and
GTX 660 with 3 GB
GDDR5
Graphics Double Data Rate 5 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (GDDR5 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous graphics random-access memory (SGRAM) with a high bandwidth (" double data rate") interface designed for use in graphics cards, game cons ...
* Main RAM: 16 GB
DDR3
Double Data Rate 3 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR3 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) with a high bandwidth (" double data rate") interface, and has been in use since 2007. It is the higher-spee ...
-1600
* Hard drive: 1 TB storage/8 GB SSD cache
hybrid drive
In computing, a hybrid drive (solid state hybrid drive – SSHD) is a logical or physical storage device that combines a faster storage medium such as solid-state drive (SSD) with a higher-capacity hard disk drive (HDD). The intent is adding s ...
* Power: 450 W power supply
* Measurement: 12" × 12.4" × 2.9" high (30.5 cm × 31.5 cm × 7.4 cm)
A core part of the machine configurations was the method of providing ventilation and cooling of the CPU, GPU, and power supply; Valve engineered custom compartments within these beta units so that each of these three units has separate circulation and ventilation routes.
Valve also worked with
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
to develop and certify hardware for future Steam Machines.
Portables
A
handheld game console
A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the cons ...
version of the Steam Machine was in development as the "SMACH Z", previously dubbed "Smach Zero" or "Steamboy" by analogy to Nintendo's
Game Boy
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...
. The SMACH Z was to be released in November 2016 and was to combine a x86 Steam OS architecture based on an AMD G-Series chip with a portable form factor and input elements similar to those of a Steam controller. A
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
crowdfunding campaign was launched in December 2015, and canceled a few days later with a promise of a restart. A new Kickstarter campaign was launched on October 16, 2016, with a much lower goal, and successfully ended with a total of €474,530 one month later. The processor is now to be an
AMD Raven Ridge
AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit ( CPU) and integrated graphics processing uni ...
V1605B, and the release date was to be sometime in April 2017. An InDemand
indiegogo campaign was launched following the end of the Kickstarter campaign. The SMACH Z has not yet been approved by Valve as an official Steam Machine. On May 12, 2021, the Smach team announced they will be filing for bankruptcy, and that units aren’t likely to be shipped unless they get new investment. Valve themselves announced a portable console for Steam named the
Steam Deck
The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming computer developed by Valve Corporation. Released on February 25, 2022, the Steam Deck can be played as a handheld or connected to a monitor in the same manner as the Nintendo Switch. It is an x86-64-v3 de ...
on July 15th, 2021, with shipping slated to begin in December of 2021.
Steam Controller
![Steam_Controller_in_package](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Steam_Controller_in_package.jpg)
The Steam Controller was released in November 2015.
The Steam Controller was designed by Valve not only for games developed for controllers, but also for games traditionally played with keyboard and mouse controls. It features two high-resolution clickable touchpads (replacing the typical thumbsticks on modern console controllers), sixteen buttons, including face, shoulder, and undergrip buttons, and
gyroscopic sensors for motion control. The touchpads include
haptic feedback, which can send tactile feedback to the player in reaction to events within the game; Chris Kohler of ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'' described using the controller while playing ''
Civilization V
''Sid Meier's Civilization V'' is a 4X video game in the ''Civilization'' series developed by Firaxis Games. The game was released on Microsoft Windows on September 21, 2010, on OS X on November 23, 2010, and on Linux on June 10, 2014.
In ...
'' at a press event at Valve, and noted that as he used the touchpad to move the mouse cursor, electromagnets within the controller created audio and tactile feedback as if he were using a trackball.
Although the controller was designed for the Steam Machine platform, it can also be used with Steam on existing PCs.
The controller is designed to be used within Steam's Big Picture mode; this enables the player to access detailed options for setting up the various features of the controller on a per-game basis including button/touchpad mapping and sensitivity, as well as accessing other users' shared controller configuration to use themselves. The Steamworks API provides means for developers to provide more detailed settings for the Steam Controller when in Big Picture mode. Outside of Big Picture mode, the controller otherwise behaves as a standard two-stick controller. Valve has added improvements to the controller's capabilities based on public feedback, which include movement and aiming controls schemes using its internal gyroscope, the ability to trigger actions that enable cursor movement limited to certain regions on a UI (such as to manipulate a game's mini-map), a quick-access popup for 16 commands that can act similar to hotkeys for keyboard-and-mouse games, cloud-based controller configuration saving, and support for non-Steam games that otherwise can be played through the Steam Overlay.
Unlike their plan to have third-party hardware vendors manufacture Steam Machines, Valve plans was the sole manufacturer of the Steam Controller. Valve did clarify that they will open up specifications for third-party controllers to be developed.
And in March 2016, Valve released the computer aided design geometry files for the Steam controller, to facilitate hardware
modding
''Modding'' is a slang expression derived from the English verb " to modify". The term refers to modification of hardware, software, or anything else, to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specific ...
by end users.
, Valve is working with
Flextronics
Flex Ltd. (previously known as Flextronics International Ltd. or Flextronics) is an American Singaporean-domiciled multinational diversified manufacturing company. It is the third largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), origi ...
robotic assembly line in
Buffalo Grove, Illinois
Buffalo Grove, officially the Village of Buffalo Grove, is a village in Lake and Cook County, Illinois. A suburb of Chicago, it lies about northwest of Downtown Chicago. As of the 2020 Census, Buffalo Grove has a population of 43,212. It tot ...
to assemble the machines; jokingly, the machines have been given
Aperture Science
The ''Half-Life'' video game series features many locations set in a dystopian future stemming from the events of the first game, ''Half-Life''. These locations are used and referred to throughout the series. The locations, for the most part, a ...
branding, the fictional company from Valve's ''
Portal
Portal often refers to:
* Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel
Portal may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Gaming
* ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...
'' series.
Vendor support
Selected manufacturers showcased prototype units prior to the 2014 CES show. iBuyPower announced a prototype model, powered by an AMD CPU with a discrete R9-270 GPU and a 500GB hard drive with a price of $499.
Digital Storm also revealed its higher-end unit utilizing liquid-cooled parts, expected to retail from about $1,500. Other vendors with Steam Machine prototypes include
Alienware
Alienware is an American computer hardware subsidiary of Dell. Their product range is dedicated to gaming computers which can be identified by their alien-themed designs. Alienware was founded in 1996 by Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila, and is ...
,
Falcon Northwest
Falcon Northwest is a private company headquartered in Medford, Oregon. It designs, assembles, and markets high-end custom computers. The company was founded in 1992 and was one of the first to specialize in PCs built specifically for gaming.
Hist ...
, CyberPowerPC,
Origin PC
Origin PC Corp. is a custom personal computer manufacturing company located in Miami, Florida. Founded by former Alienware employees in 2009, Origin PC assembles high-performance gaming and professional-use desktop and laptop computers from thi ...
,
Gigabyte
The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB.
This defini ...
, Materiel.net, Webhallen, Alternate, Next,
Zotac, Scan Computers, and
Maingear
Maingear (stylized as MAINGEAR) is an American privately held ("boutique") computer manufacturer headquartered in Warren, New Jersey. Producing Maingear builds, designs, and supports custom desktops, gaming computers, customizable laptops, and ...
, all of whom, except Maingear, showcased their prototypes at the 2014 CES show. The price range of these first machines ranged from $499 to $6,000 based on vendor and specifications.
Alienware announced it would start selling consumer Steam Machines in September. The company planned to offer only fixed hardware units that cannot be modified by the user, but plan on offering new configurations on an annual basis. The initial units, called Alpha, did not initially ship with SteamOS, as the operating system wasn't not be ready in time. Owners were able to upgrade their units to SteamOS once it was officially released.
On the official release of Steam Machines in November 2015, both Falcon Northwest and Origin PC opted to not ship a SteamOS-enabled machine in 2015 due to limitations of SteamOS over Windows; Falcon Northwest have said they would consider shipping machines with SteamOS in the future if performance improves.
Valve has negotiated deals with retail stores
GameStop
GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer. The company is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas), and is the largest video game retailer worldwide. , the company operates 4,5 ...
,
EB Games
EB Games (formerly known as Electronics Boutique and EB World) is an American computer and video games retailer. First established as an American company in 1977 by James Kim with a single electronics-focused location in the King of Prussia mall ...
and
Game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
to create Steam Sections within the stores where various Steam Machines, the Steam Controller and Link, and pre-paid Steam cards will be sold.
Software
SteamOS
Steam Machines, at minimum, run
SteamOS
SteamOS is a Linux distribution developed by Valve. It is open source with some closed source components and is the primary operating system for Steam Machines and the Steam Deck.
The initial versions of SteamOS, versions 1.0 and 2.0, were ba ...
, a
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
-based operating system derived from
Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...
that expands the current Steam client to add additional functionality such as media sharing, media services, Steam In-Home Streaming, family sharing, and
parental controls
Parental controls are features which may be included in digital television services, computers and video games, mobile devices and software that allow parents to restrict the access of content to their children. These controls were created to ...
. The operating system is freely available for any user to install on their own hardware, assuming it meets the system requirements.
Games and applications
![Steam Link](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Steam_Link.jpg)
Games will be developed to run natively on Linux and SteamOS. Linux compatibility is already a feature offered through the Steamworks
application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...
(API), and according to
Paradox Interactive
Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an independen ...
, all of their recent games that have been designed to work with Steam under Linux will also run under SteamOS without additional modifications. Valve will not make games that are exclusive to SteamOS or Steam Machines, and has cautioned third-party developers against making games exclusive to the platform. However, Valve will not stop developers from making SteamOS-exclusive games, particularly those that are best suited for playing from the living room.
Players will also be able to stream games from regular PCs running Steam to Steam Machines, allowing access to games that are only available for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
or
OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
. Through SteamPlay, users can play games available on SteamOS that they already own on Windows or OS X and will not need to repurchase the title. Also, games running on a Steam Machine can be streamed to a
Steam Link
Steam Link is a hardware and software solution made by Valve Corporation for streaming Steam content from a personal computer or Steam Machine wirelessly to a mobile device or other monitor. Steam Link was originally released as a hardware devic ...
device via a wireless LAN connection.
Reception
By June 2016, seven months after the official release, fewer than half a million units had been sold. In response to the sales figures,
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
described the unit as
dead on arrival
Dead on Scene
('' 'DOS' '')
Found dead before first responders get on scene and no medical treatment was given.
Dead on arrival (DOA), also dead in the field and brought in dead (BID), are terms which indicate that a patient was found to be ...
. Valve has yet to release an actual sales figure. While some vendors still offer Steam Machine options, or configurations that can be installed with SteamOS, other vendors have discontinued their products by the end of 2016.
In an article published in July 2017, ''
PC Gamer
''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games ma ...
'' lists several factors why Steam Machines did not take off as Valve had anticipated. SteamOS itself was not seen as ready for everyday and gaming use in its initial builds and Valve has been unresponsive at times towards Steam Machine makers to release updates, while concurrently,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
had announced its free rollout of
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
, making that an incentive over Valve's software. Valve also had delayed the Steam Controller release to 2015, which also subsequently delayed the Steam Machine release. Further, the Steam Machine makers felt that the
Steam Link
Steam Link is a hardware and software solution made by Valve Corporation for streaming Steam content from a personal computer or Steam Machine wirelessly to a mobile device or other monitor. Steam Link was originally released as a hardware devic ...
, produced by Valve, competed with concept of Steam Machines and was a much more cost-attractive product. In most cases the Steam Machine vendors simply found that there was not as great a market for the product, since it was trying to bridge consoles and home computers, while they found most consumers would flock to one extreme or the other.
In March 2020, Newell said "the
team Machinehardware we were pushing for was super-incomplete at the time." It was stated that Steam Machines impacted Valve's design for the
Valve Index
The Valve Index is a consumer virtual reality headset created and manufactured by Valve. Announced on April 30, 2019, the headset was released on June 28 of the same year. The Index is a second-generation headset and the first to be manufacture ...
and ''
Half-Life: Alyx'' with "designing hardware and software in concert with each other."
References
External links
*
{{Valve
Products introduced in 2015
Machine
A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to na ...
X86-based computers
x86-based game consoles