New Steam Hardware Looks Dope (rant)

     Aight, I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I've been reading up on the new Steam hardware that was announced and I can't stop being excited about it. Just wanted to give my thoughts and just nerd out about all the stuff I like about it. I'll break it up into sections to make it easier to digest.

     Steam Controller: Firstly, I wanna acknowledge the first Steam controller from 2015.

     The first Steam Controller was.. iffy. While the inclusion of the touch pads made playing PC games on the TV way easier, it's choice to forego the other thumb stick was a bad one. It made using it a nightmare when trying to use it for games that were designed with an ordinary controller in mind. Then, in 2022, we get the Steam Deck, and it took concepts from the Steam Controller and improved on them. It featured two analog sticks, full face-buttons and a D-pad, as well as two track pads for playing games that were better with a mouse. I got my Steam Deck last year (it was between that or waiting for the Switch 2, definitely made the right choice) and I love it. It feels great in the hand, all the controls are super solid, and the track pads are great for playing games like Half Sword or Albion Online on the go. After using the Deck for awhile, I knew I wanted a new Steam Controller; one that was essentially a Steam Deck without the screen. And I'm happy to say that Valve has delivered! 

     This controller is everything I wanted from a second Steam Controller. Of course I have yet to see how it feels in the hand, but if it feels anything like the Steam Deck, then it'll definitely replace my Stadia Controller as my daily driver. Very excited for this unit!

     Steam Machine: Again, I wanna go back to the past before addressing the future. Just like how Valve had a Steam Controller back in 2015, they also had Steam Machines. Yes, not one Steam Machine, but multiple Steam Machines. Back in the day they had their, at the time, Debian-based SteamOS (which is now Arch-based) and they wanted hardware to run it on. Instead of making their own, they relied on OEMs like Alienware to make Steam Machines for them. And they were... again, iffy.

     While some of these machines, like the one pictured, had some decent specs to boot, they weren't very performant. On top of that, Linux gaming was nowhere near as viable as it is today, so you could really only play a handful of native Linux games on this thing (unless you installed Windows on it). So, for ~$800, you'd get a less-than-decent console with a very small library and a sub-par controller. This new Steam Machine, however, seems to be the stark opposite of it's predecessor. 

     This little guy packs a punch, touted as being 6x more powerful than the Steam Deck, it is super performant for its size. As where running Linux for gaming in 2015 was completely laughable, using Linux today for gaming is super possible thanks to Valve's continued development of their Proton compatibility layer that translates Windows code to run on Linux. Without Proton, none of Valve's current hardware would be possible. The new Steam Machine runs Valves newer Arch-based SteamOS found on the Steam Deck, allowing for a super lightweight OS that gets out of your way and lets you get to your games easily. Valve, with the Steam Machine, has put themselves in a really interesting position to potentially uproot the game console industry. With it being very likely that the next Xbox will just be a Windows PC with a skin on it, the Steam Machine could be the answer to it that we need. It all comes down to price. But, regardless of price, I think the Steam Machine will be the best option if you're looking for a new game console, or even a new PC you don't wanna fiddle with.

     Steam Frame: Okay, for this section, I don't plan on talking about the past. The Valve Index is widely regarded as a great VR headset, so I think the Frame is just a natural step forward. But, the Frame introduces something new to Valve's technological endeavors that I find much more interesting and much more important.

     The Steam Frame is being positioned as a PC VR headset, with the ability to play your whole Steam library locally as well. To do this, Valve has been cooking up two new pieces of tech to make it all possible. The first is a wireless USB dongle. I know, doesn't sound all that crazy, but this dongle is specifically used for sending Wi-Fi 6E signals to the headset in order to stream PC VR games wirelessly. From the reports I've seen it works really well, but we'll have to wait and see how it works in actuality. If it works as well as they say, then this will be huge for the accessibility to PC VR. It's always been such a pain being tethered to your PC by a long cable, and finding a good way to hook that kinda thing up, so this is a very welcome advancement. The other advancement they're making with this headset is way cooler in my opinion though.

     Obviously, in order to run games natively on the Steam Frame, the device would need some kind of compute on-board. It's using an ARM-based Snapdragon chip, similarly to other standalone VR headsets. The interesting thing about that is that the majority of games on Steam are written for x86 CPUs, not ARM CPUs. So, if that's the case, then how to they expect you to "play your whole Steam library" on this thing? Remember before, how I mentioned that Valve has their Proton layer to translate Windows code to Linux? Well, they're working on a new compatibility layer called FEX to translate x86 code to ARM, which is just so freaking cool! The implications here are honestly insane.

     You gotta think, Valve has paved the way for Linux gaming to be way more accessible because of Proton and the Steam Deck. With the introduction of this new ARM-power gaming headset, running their Arch-based SteamOS, they're now paving the way for wider ARM SoC adoption and for better Linux-on-ARM support, which is just awesome. I'm personally very interested in seeing the phasing out of x86 as the standard for consumer computer CPUs and seeing ARM take it's place. It'd lead to better power efficiency, meaning better battery life on laptop and handhelds, as well as just less power consumption on desktops. If ARM continues in it's current direction of more efficiency and more power, then I think we'll very likely see that transition happen in the next decade or so. And so long as Valve continues down this path of growing support for ARM. It'll definitely happen with laptops and handhelds first, I think we're a ways off from seeing ARM takeover the desktop world. But, this is the first step in really pushing to make it happen.

    All of this is to say that I'm very excited for this new Steam hardware. I'm always happy to support Valve given what they pour back into the community with projects like Proton and now FEX. I'm excited for a future of open hardware and wider Linux adoption, as well as a future where ARM becomes the standard for CPUs across the board. Thanks for reading my long rant, feel free to follow the blog for more tech rants lol