The new 2026 rendition of the Steam Machine started shipping out on June 29th. That means some gamers are starting to get their hands on Valve’s pricey console competitor. Despite that $1000+ price tag, some gamers decided to give the Steam Machine a chance. Unfortunately, not long after booting up the Steam Machine, one owner has already encountered its first major issue. And it’s not a small one.
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Reddit user @me_hill took to the r/steammachine subreddit to share the unfortunate news. The post, titled “Well, the Steam Machine was pretty cool for the 20 minutes that it worked,” shows a close-up of Valve’s gaming device. Instead of the glowing white light you might hope to see based on promo images, the machine displays a red line indicating a system error. This, naturally, took many gamers right back to Xbox 360’s notorious “red ring of death.”
Apparent Steam Machine Hardware Failure Dubbed “Red Line of Death” in Homage to Xbox 360 Error
If you’re old enough to remember the launch of the Xbox 360 like I am, you no doubt recall the Red Ring of Death. Like with the Steam Machine, the infamous issue began showing up not long after the Xbox 360 hit the market back in 2005. As its name suggests, a red ring would flash around the console’s power button. Unfortunately, it was often a sign of full-on hardware failure. While you could sometimes fix it at home, seeing the Red Ring of Death felt like a death sentence and often meant sending your new console out for official repairs. The Red Ring of Death was such a widespread error that even PlayStation gamers like me remember it.
Now, it looks like the Steam Machine may have shipped with a similar issue. According to @me_hill, the console only worked for about 20 minutes before it apparently hit some kind of major issue. As the top comment on the post reports, “The red line of death is here.” In response, many gamers of a certain age have been transported right back to the Xbox 360 era. “I never thought I’d live to see this happen twice in my lifetime,” says one Reddit user. And honestly? Same.
In the comments, the original poster goes into more detail about what happened with their Steam Machine. According to them, the red line of death error code indicates GPU failure. It happened right after the user installed an update, and @me_hill hasn’t had any luck troubleshooting on their end. They’re currently working to connect with Steam Support to see what their options are. So, we’ll have to stay tuned to see what Valve has to say. Steam’s customer support has a reputation for being pretty responsive and helpful, so hopefully, they’ll have a solution for this unfortunate early adopter soon enough.
As of now, this is the only reported major failure for the Steam Machine. But the device only shipped out a few days ago. It will likely take a little while to see just how widespread the issue is with this first batch of Steam Machines. But it is nostalgic in a way, ushering the Steam Machine into console history. Fitting for a piece of hardware that’s trying to be both a PC and a console, even if it is upsetting for those who just shelled out so much money to own one.
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