Steam Hardware – An Interesting Announcement!

Posted on November 13, 2025 by Aywren

Yesterday, Valve dropped a huge announcement for the upcoming release of the Steam Hardware ecosystem. This began with Steam Deck, and is expanding to include Steam Controller, Steam Machine (which some folks are calling the GabeCube), and Steam Frame.

Whether you’re a handheld gamer, a PC gamer, a console gamer, or a VR gamer, there seemed to be something for everyone here, and no doubt, it’s stirred up a lot of excitement. Given that 98% of my non-FFXIV gaming is done on Steam within my massive Steam game library, I admit that even I’m a bit excited…

…despite the fact that none of these products are on my radar…

Let me explain!

While I’ve been very tempted to purchase a Steam Deck, and knowing that it has Switch-like functionality to dock it to a TV makes it even more tempting, I’m not a handheld player and I don’t currently own a Deck. I have spent my share of time looking at the Steam Deck page and pondering, as well as combing through to see which of my Steam games are Deck compatible, though.

I don’t need a fancy controller, as nice as all of the Steam Controller features sound. I rarely game with a controller, and when I do, I have a cheapie USB controller that works just fine.

I already have a gaming machine. Sure, it’s getting on in age, but it still does what I want it to do. Not to mention, I tend to build my own rigs, so the idea of a pre-built Steam Machine, which you cannot likely upgrade on down the line… and which we don’t have a price point for yet, just doesn’t sound feasible to me. Why would I need a Steam OS box when I have a PC that works for everything I need it to already?

And finally, my Quest 3S VR Headset is not even a year old. I really need to do more gaming on it, in fact, as I do own a number of neat games, though mostly from within the Meta shop. I don’t see a need for Steam Frame given the low number of VR games I’ve purchased through Steam, despite all the perks and features the headset offers.

Basically, I like what I hear about all of the hardware, but I already own something that acts as an equivalent and doesn’t need to be replaced at this moment. Going forward, I might consider buying more of my VR games on Steam and just using Steam VR to cast them to my Quest.

STILL.

All that being said, something about this excites me. Even if I don’t need any of this hardware just yet, maybe one day, my next VR headset upgrade will be a Steam Frame. Maybe I will finally break down and get a Steam Deck should the price feel right. A lot of this does depend on pricing and reviews, so I’m very much in wait and see mode.

And honestly, given how rough this past year has been for gaming interest for me, and given how poorly console companies have been acting this year, I really just want to be excited about something that the general gaming community is feeling positive towards. So far, I’m seeing a lot of buzz drummed up around this announcement, so even if the hardware is not on my purchase radar for next year, I’m glad that it’s coming.

I guess I want someone to stick it to Nintendo and Microsoft and Sony for all the price hiking and drama this past year. Is Valve a perfect company? Probably not. None of them are. But Steam is something I use almost every day now, despite originally being concerned about digital only games back when I was first adopting Steam back in 2009. If they can make waves in a positive way for gamers in general, I’m all for it!

Is any of the new Steam Hardware something you’re interested in?

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