Featured Image Credit: Valve
Topics: PC, Steam, Steam Machine, Valve, PlayStation 5
Valve’s confirmation about the Steam Machine could give it a major advantage over alternatives like PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
When Valve revealed the Steam Machine last November, it announced that the upcoming console-like PC would have 'six times the horsepower of Steam Deck', opening the door for many more games to run well on the system. This makes sense, considering the Steam Machine is considerably larger than the Deck and is more of a home console than a handheld, allowing Valve to be able to pack more advanced hardware inside it.
As Valve designer Lawrence Yang recently stated, "one easy rule of thumb is that if your title is Verified on Steam Deck, it will be Verified on Steam Machine,” referring to the huge jump in power as “it just works”.
As a home console, the Steam Machine is going to rival the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S at least in terms of experiences you can have on it. You can simply sit on the sofa, wake it up with your Steam Controller, and start playing some of the latest AAA releases coming out this year.
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But when weighing up whether to play on a Steam Machine, or instead opt for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, there is one huge advantage here: it can play your entire PC games library.
To start with, that means I can play Halo: The Master Chief Collection and The Last of Us on the same platform. Console exclusives from both Microsoft and Sony have all hit PC and are available in the same library.
This includes retro titles like Splinter Cell or the Hitman games, which aren’t easily available on console.
And while AAA games should play just fine on the Steam Machine, I know that if I run into any issues with performance or graphical quality, I can hit up the settings menu and fiddle with a few options to try and get it working.
Unlike traditional console gaming, which doesn’t allow me to do this too extensively, I can essentially tweak my game’s graphics settings around until I find a setting that works for me, whether that means reducing shadow or lighting quality to squeeze a few extra frames out of the game I’m currently playing.
And if all else fails, the other best thing about PC gaming comes in handy: modding.
With the Steam Machine, I’ll be able to install all those Skyrim mods that we cover here on GAMINGbible, or I can download some mods to help get an older game running well on the system. Really, the possibilities are endless.
This does obviously come with a huge caveat: the price. The Steam Machine will likely cost a lot more than a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S.
Considering the trade-off, I’d say that’s worth it.
However, with Sony and Microsoft considering upping the price of their hardware anyway due to recent RAM and GPU shortages, I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually reaches a point where there won’t be much of a difference between PC and console gaming anyway.