Over the years, Valve has solidified itself as the king of PC gaming through its platform Steam. Steam remains the most popular store and launcher for PC players, though others like Epic Games Store and GOG exist. Valve has expanded its reach with the Steam Deck, essentially a handheld PC designed similarly to the Nintendo Switch. But recent reports are suggesting Valve plans to launch a new product, one that will challenge other platforms and increase the company’s reach. If the leaks are true, Valve could push other studios to further invest in their hardware by launching their own product into the console space.
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The leaks indicate Valve is developing a new hardware designed to compete with Xbox and PlayStation in the console market. Following the success of the Steam Deck, it seems a no-brainer that Valve would want to capitalize on this.
The leak comes from eXtas1s, a leaker known mainly for sharing information about happenings within Xbox and its Xbox Game Studios family as well as games that might come to Xbox Game Pass. The leaker claims that Valve is developing a new Steam console that specifically aims to compete against the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S and said (via HandleDeck) that Valve is working with AMD and RDNA 4 for this project.
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While mostly known for Steam and PC games, Valve is no stranger to expanding outside of those confines either. The Steam Deck has been a resounding success, and it also produced the Steam Machine, though this had limited success. Valve also created the Steam Link which let players stream their Steam games outside of their PC. It is not out of the question that Valve would develop a Steam console to try and expand its market, especially with the lessons it has learned from the Steam Deck.
One possibility is Valve is developing a console targeting a medium-spec PC. Launching something like this would be a great way to expand Steam to the console market and allow players to enjoy PC games they may not be able to play via PlayStation and Xbox. Targeting the middle of of low-end and high-end PCs would reach those who are interested in the PC space but might not necessarily want to invest in building their own PC.
Between Steam and the Steam Deck, Valve has locked down a significant portion of the gaming industry and remains the go-to resources for PC games despite competitors like the Epic Games Store and GOG. The Nintendo Switch 2’s release may be able to rival the capabilities of the Steam Deck, and if this is the case, introducing a new piece of hardware in the console market would help mitigate any loss from Nintendo’s next console.
With all leaks and rumors, it is important to remain skeptical until official information is revealed. While it is possible Valve is developing a new console, there is no concrete information to support this.
