Valve May Soon Bring Back Third-Party Steam Machines

After Valve got a lot of PC gamers excited about gaming handhelds with its popular Steam Deck, the company appears to be working with third-party manufacturers on a comeback of Steam machines. The timing seems right now that SteamOS, Valve’s Linux-based OS is a much better alternative to Windows when it comes to ease of use and game compatibility.

You may remember that back in 2015, Valve got Alienware and other manufacturers to release a couple of Steam machines for the living room. Valve even released its own Steam controller for these console-like devices, but these first Steam machines were probably ahead of their time. Indeed, that was before Valve started to invest in the Proton compatibility layer that made the most popular Windows games run seamlessly on SteamOS.

Over the summer, Valve confirmed to The Verge that it was working to make SteamOS compatible with third-party gaming handhelds such as the Asus ROG Ally. The latter ships with Windows 11, which is great for gamers who want to use PC Game Pass or install other game launchers like Gog or the Epic Games Store. However, Windows 11 isn’t optimized for running on devices with a 7-inch display like the ROG Ally. It also doesn’t help that Asus and other manufacturers of Windows-based gaming handhelds are all building custom overlays that aren’t easy to use and may sometimes clash with Windows features.

Over the weekend, The Verge published a detailed roundup of all the things Valve appears to be working on right now to grow the SteamOS ecosystem. That  includes a new Steam controller and what could be a new living room Steam box codenamed “Fremont.”

Moreover, the company also updated a Brand guidelines document that includes the new “Powered by SteamOS” logo you can see at the top of this article. The document says this logo will be used “for hardware running the SteamOS operating system, implemented in close collaboration with Valve.”

If Valve’s Steam Deck proved that there was an appetite for gaming handhelds providing seamless access to Steam games, Valve could significantly grow the SteamOS ecosystem with the help of third-party manufacturers. Unlike Windows, SteamOS is free, and it’s optimized for gaming handhelds and the living room experience. Moreover, gamers don’t need to pay a subscription like Xbox Game Pass Core or PlayStation Plus to play the Steam version of multiplayer games.

As of today, Valve is making SteamOS free to install for anyone, though the installation process is quite technical and the OS only supports a certain set of hardware. However, this new “Powered by SteamOS logo” suggests that may soon see third-party devices shipping with SteamOS out of the box. Whether that includes both gaming handhelds and console-like devices for the living room remains to be seen, however.