TECH NEWS – Although one of Valve’s recent announcements was somewhat disappointing, it may not have a significant impact on performance.

One of the most significant changes compared to the first-generation Steam Machine is the wide selection of available games. Valve also needs to ensure that the device is competitively priced while delivering adequate performance. In this regard, hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat stated in the embedded interview below that the new console-like platform is comparable to or better than 70% of the machines registered in the Steam hardware survey.

“Well, you can look at it from two different directions, right? The first is that it needs enough performance to play all your Steam games. That was really important to us. We want it to be a simple experience. You don’t have to worry about, ‘Oh, I play these games.’ Will it have enough performance to play these games?’ The first hurdle was ensuring that the Steam Machine has enough performance so you don’t have to worry about that.

However, we also wanted to target an entry-level device. We understand that affordability is important. The price point plays a huge role in determining the performance level we’re trying to achieve. We essentially used these two factors to determine what makes the most sense. Another thing we looked at was the Steam hardware survey. It gives us a good idea of where people’s home devices are in terms of performance. The Steam Machine is equal to or better than 70% of home devices. It’s another way to think about it, and we arrived at that performance level,” Aldehayyat said.

Based on the released specifications, the Steam Machine’s performance is likely to fall between the Xbox Series S and the PlayStation 5. Considering the 8 GB of VRAM, we shouldn’t expect anything extraordinary. Aldehayyat confirmed that Valve did not handle silicon tuning but rather used ready-made chips. However, they designed the firmware and software to optimize the Steam Machine for the SteamOS environment.

We will soon learn more about pricing, as the Steam Machine will be available in early 2026.

Source: WCCFTech