Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer has welcomed Valve’s next-gen Steam machine in a congratulatory message to Valve.
Yesterday, Valve unveiled its next-gen hardware plans by announcing a new Steam Machine, a new Steam Controller, and its Steam Frame virtual reality headset.
The Steam Machine is a gaming-focused PC designed to be more accessible than a standard desktop PC, with a sleek, cube-like design and SteamOS on-board. It’s a clear play for the PC in the living room space, and comes ahead of Microsoft’s own reported next-gen console ambitions.
“Gaming moves forward when players and developers have more ways to play and create, especially across open platforms,” Spencer tweeted. “Expanding access across PC, console, and handheld devices reflects a future built on choice, core values that have guided Xbox's vision from the start. As one of the largest publishers on Steam, we welcome new options for players to access games everywhere. Congrats on today's announce.”
A recent report claimed the next Xbox is a console / PC hybrid that will play PlayStation games released on PC via Steam. That means the likes of Sony Santa Monica’s God of War, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, and Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima and pretty much all other PC games will all be playable on the next-gen Xbox in an industry first.
Windows Central reported that while users of the next-gen Xbox can remain inside the Xbox ecosystem if they want, they can exit to Windows, where the console acts like a traditional Windows PC. That means having access to PlayStation games on Steam, and mouse and keyboard games from Blizzard's launcher, Battle.net (World of Warcraft), and Riot's launcher (League of Legends).
Following that report, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella dropped yet another hint that the next-gen Xbox is basically a PC. In an interview with TBPN, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella responded to questions about the evolution of the company’s gaming business, and in doing so dropped a clear hint at where the company is going.
“Remember, the biggest gaming business is the Windows business,” Nadella began. “To us, gaming on Windows… and of course, Steam has built a massive marketplace on top of it, and they’ve done a very successful job. Now, we’re the largest publisher after the Activision [deal]. Therefore we want to be a fantastic publisher. Similar approach to what we did with Office. We want to be everywhere, in every platform. So we want to make sure, whether it’s consoles, whether it’s the PC, whether it’s mobile, whether it’s cloud gaming, or the TV, we just want to make sure the games are being enjoyed by gamers everywhere.
“Second, we also wanted to do innovative work in the system side on the console and on the PC. It’s kind of funny that people think about the console-PC as two different things. We built the console because we wanted to build a better PC which could then perform for gaming. I kind of want to revisit some of that conventional wisdom.
“But at the end of the day, console has an experience that is unparalleled. It delivers performance that is unparalleled, that pushes I think the system forward. So I’m really looking forward to the next console, the next PC gaming.”
Fast forward to this week, and Valve appears to have gazumped Microsoft by returning to the Steam Machine. In an interview with IGN ahead of the reveal, we asked Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais and hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat whether they saw gaming PCs being the natural evolution of the console, given both Microsoft and Valve’s efforts here.
Here’s how they responded:
Pierre-Loup Griffais: When we think about what to work on next and working on things like Steam Machine and stuff, we're typically not looking at consoles or other products in that direction. Everything we do is informed by what's happening on the PC gaming side of things. Of course there ends up being quite a bit of overlap because we’re doing a bunch of stuff that helps PC gaming work better in the living room and that's traditionally where consoles have been. But really I would say that most of our thinking is not informed by what's happening on the console side, and so I don't know if we have many theories as to where that might be headed. But in general it seems like people seem to be recognizing that there's quite a bit of value in a more PC-like experience and the customizability and all that, and so we're happy to see more of these elements being embraced by platforms in general.
Yazan Aldehayyat: As far as we're concerned the Steam Machine is a PC, so that delineation is not there. In our view, the Steam Machine is just one option in the ecosystem of gaming PCs out there. If you're already happy with your PC gaming experience, that's great. We love that. We are a PC gaming company. We're just trying to give you more options. And that's how we view it. It's just something that we think is a really great addition to a living room or a desktop, but it's just one other option that people can have available to them to play their Steam games basically.
So, Valve is downplaying the idea that Steam Machine is set to compete with the next-gen Xbox, but it’s hard to see Microsoft being particularly thrilled by the idea of Valve’s device coming out first and with a similar proposition. But there’s much we don’t know about either company’s plans. For a start, we don’t know when exactly the Steam Machine will come out, beyond a vague 2026 release window, and we don’t know how much it will cost (Aldehayyat told us the Steam Machine “is going to be a really competitive price to that and provide really good value to it”).
The replies to Spencer’s tweet are, predictably, packed with memes, most of which riff on Microsoft’s often derided ‘This Is an Xbox’ marketing campaign. Some are wondering when Game Pass will eventually launch on Steam.
So, what else do we know about the next-gen Xbox? Xbox president Sarah Bond has called out the recently released — and pricy — ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X handhelds as pointing in the direction Microsoft is taking with its upcoming console. In an interview with Mashable, Bond talked in vague terms about what Microsoft is going for, but did strongly suggest it will be an expensive device.
"The next-gen console is going to be a very premium, very high-end curated experience," Bond said. "You're starting to see some of the thinking we have in this handheld [ROG Xbox Ally], but I don't want to give it all away."
Prior comments from Bond have backed the console / PC hybrid suggestion up, too. "This is all about building you a gaming platform that's always with you, so you can play the games you want across devices anywhere you want, delivering you an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device," Bond said.
"That's why we're working closely with the Windows team, to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming."
Xbox is set to go up against PlayStation once again, with both Microsoft and Sony reportedly set to release their next-gen consoles in 2027. The next-gen Xbox is taking a different route this time, but the expectation is the PS6 will be a more traditional console, offering genuinely exclusive games — as the PS5 does now. Perhaps now we need to throw Steam Machine into the mix.
We’ve got plenty more on all Valve’s hardware announcements, and have a handy roundup so you don’t miss a thing. We went hands-on with Steam Machine and Steam Controller, and if you’re wondering about Steam Deck 2, we asked Valve about that as well.
Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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