Whatever Valve says about its PC-first credentials, its new Steam Machines are another step closer to obliterating the once-indelible line between console and PC

The most fascinating thing about Valve’s newly-announced Steam Machine, in a sense, is its status as a halfway house. It is certainly one thing, but it is also clearly pressing at becoming another. Maybe it is neither? Is this a new category emerging? Or is it simply lines that were once indelible now becoming scuffed, worn, and permeable?

“At the end of the day, it’s a PC in every way,” Valve hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat explained to Eurogamer as part of an introduction to the new Steam Machines.

“This is something that’s really important to us,” Aldehayyat continues. “You can run any software you want on it. You can play any game you want, regardless of where you bought it from. You can install different operating systems. There’s a desktop environment that works really well for productivity tasks or multitasking. A lot of the hardware decisions we made are in keeping with that PC DNA and ethos.”

So, fair enough. This is a PC. Valve couldn’t be any clearer about that – that flag is planted, that claim written in the boldest text imaginable. And yet… Here I am, questioning them just a smidge.

We live in strange times, after all. Xbox is pointing at PCs and saying ‘this is an Xbox’ – but looking at Valve’s Steam Machines, I can’t help but step back and ask… ‘is this a console?’

If you really look at the features of Valve’s new-generation Steam Machines, it’s hard not to appraise it as an attempt to draw the PC ecosystem closer to a console-like experience. It’s often in the little things – but as a character says in the best-ever episode of The Simpsons, it’s the little things that make up life.

So you have the fact that the machine has HDMI-CEC hooks, meaning the gaming box can control your telly. Turn it on and pick up the controller and your TV will switch on or change to the right input, if compatible. Even while you’re away from the machine, if it’s not been hard-powered off it’ll keep your games and its operating system up to date. It’ll do the same for your Steam Cloud saves. You don’t need a dongle to connect the new Steam Controller (though it also ships with a dongle for connecting to more traditional PCs).

There’s a fast suspend/resume system, so you can pause your game, turn off your machine, return and be right back where you were in a few seconds. Even the level of performance, targeting a clean upscaled 4K and 60 frames per second performance in ‘any game on Steam’ – Cyberpunk 2077 was demoed by Valve – feels built to rival the current consoles.

And, of course, we’ve all seen the Steam Deck experience over the last few years. It’s improved tremendously from when I first took possession of a pre-release unit and found that it was only plug-and-play compatible with about twenty of my thousands of games. The game verification system makes it clear what games work, and the Deck-specific operating system now feels more console-like than ever.

The test is always of course if you could just buy this for somebody’s birthday, hand it to them, and have them boot it and get into games on their own without issue. I think Valve is largely there already with the Steam Deck. There are compatibility questions if you want to play specific games, sure. That’s where you can end up booting into the desktop-style operating system in order to download something like GeForce Now or a specific mod.

With that said, I do think the experience is there such that somebody daunted by such things could just get a Deck, sign up for Steam, and only buy and play the games marked as explicitly compatible with their device. Device verification, default controller mapping, and pre-set settings go a long way to remove the most initially daunting aspects of PC gaming. With that stuff taken care of, it all sure sounds like a console-like experience to me.

The new under-telly Steam Machines aim to further this cause. There’s operating system improvements, new features, and general tweaks to make everything smoother. In the end, this is a dinky little box that you can buy, chuck under your telly, and use to play games. And it sounds like thanks to Valve’s efforts with the Steam Deck and renewed efforts for these specific machines, this is about to be the most simple plug-and-play PC gaming experience ever.

Valve reps press on the fact their sights are not set on usurping the traditional console, still.

“For sure, we don’t really tend to work back from what’s happening in other spaces,” argues Aldehayyat. “We try to focus on our audience.”

Valve’s audience is on PC. Because of that, this is still a PC. And Valve’s argument, in a sense, is that the console space is coming to them, rather than the other way around. I’d argue that it’s really a little bit of both, though.

As a PC, if you’re sufficiently confident and hardcore, you can modify it with alternate operating systems, custom code, whatever you like. If you think the fan is too loud (though Valve promises it is quiet), you can go in and address its speed directly. All that nonsense. Which, honestly, is great to have – these are the strengths of the PC ecosystem. However, what is presented up-front sure feels like a console to me.

And as it currently stands, there is one thing that does seem to stand between Steam Machines and being treated as a true rival to Xbox and PlayStation – Valve currently plans to self-distribute the machines, meaning you’ll need to be on Steam to buy one. A key step for the growth of this thing surely needs to be being able to buy one from a normal shop, which isn’t currently on the horizon.

Much of this is the same argument as with the Xbox ROG Ally X – but in reverse. Microsoft says that device ‘is an Xbox’, but it looks and moves like a Windows PC at all times except when you are in one specific app. The Steam Deck’s custom operating system feels infinitely more console-like. Microsoft is coming at this from one direction – trying to convert Xbox into a PC ecosystem. Valve comes at it from another – adding layers of features and considerations to ‘consoleize’ their established PC experience. With the Deck and these Machines, it seems it has been better at successfully finding the best of both worlds.

Or to put it another way: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… it’s a duck, isn’t it? This might just be a duck that can also, with a flourish, transform into something else. Hop into desktop mode, and it is truly a PC. In the main Steam OS frontend, it’s more console-like. It’s Optimus Duck.

Or maybe it’s not. Maybe we are staring down the barrel of an evolutionary event. Similarly to how we watched the handheld and tv-based threads of Nintendo converge into one, I do think we are now deep into a process that will see the console and PC become increasingly indistinguishable. If that is what is happening, Valve certainly seems to be putting its best foot forward.