While Valve has noted that it will price the Steam Machine so that it’s “more in line” with the “current PC market”, the company is yet to confirm what exactly this means. Former Xbox executive and Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, however, believes that the company should be more open with its operating system – SteamOS – and allow other companies to use it as well. In a social media post, Ybarra said that a key to the adoption of SteamOS would be to allow more companies to ship it with their own systems.
“Dear Valve Software, please just let 3rd parties use SteamOS and make the [hardware] with many different configurations,” wrote Ybarra. “SteamOS will take off and your Store revenue will only go up.” Ybarra went on to note that using SteamOS like this would also be a great move for Xbox, rather than the company sticking to Windows.
“This is what Xbox should do, btw,” his post continued. “But they will likely be forced to push Windows with AI, co-pilot, teams, and more. They could do GREAT if they embraced SteamOS on HW.”
It is worth noting that, since it is a Linux-based operating system, SteamOS is quite open even in its current form, with some users even finding success when they attempt to use the Steam Deck’s SteamOS recovery image on a desktop PC with AMD hardware. However, Valve hasn’t yet released SteamOS on its own to the public, and the operating system is still largely limited to specific sets of hardware, like the aforementioned Steam Deck and Lenovo’s Legion Go S.
The decision to not open it out the public is likely a technical one, since the operating system would need wider driver support in order to run on more hardware. Currently, the company is more focused on ensuring that its own hardware – the Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame – and is working with AMD to ensure the correct drivers are available in for the operating system. In fact, the company is likely keen on opening the operating system up to more hardware companies, but doesn’t have the bandwidth to ensure that all of the required driver development for different hardware configurations can be supported.
While SteamOS on its own might be “officially” limited to only Valve’s hardware releases, the Linux community has stepped up to fill in the gaps on its own. One of the more popular Linux distribution that offers a SteamOS-like experience is the Fedora-based Bazzite, which allows users to set it up to be quite similar to SteamOS, including booting right into Steam’s Big Picture mode.
On the subject of Xbox and the Steam Machine, NYU Stern Schoool of Business professor and industry analyst Joost van Dreunen has referred to Valve’s upcoming compact gaming PC as “Microsoft’s worst nightmare”.
“Steam Machine basically turns Microsoft’s worst nightmare into a shipping product,” said van Dreunen. “It pushes Microsoft further down the path it’s already walking, where Game Pass and cloud access matter more than plastic boxes.”
The Steam Machine is slated for launch some time in early 2026, alongside the new Steam Controller and the Steam Frame VR headset.
