- 10 hours ago
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00:00Michael and Jackie here at Valve, and we just saw the Steam Machine, the new Steam Controller, and the Steam Frame.
00:06Three new pieces of hardware coming straight from Valve.
00:09But I want to start with a big ticket item, and it's the Steam Machine,
00:13which is a PC that is essentially a stronger Steam Deck that connects to your TV as if it was a docked Steam Deck.
00:21It comes with a lot of the same perks of the Steam OS and the simplicity of figuring out how to play games,
00:28but it is now powered to be sort of a set-top box for a more traditional console-like experience.
00:35So I kind of want to get your thoughts and feelings, Jackie.
00:38You've been testing a lot of pieces of hardware.
00:40You are our premier benchmarker here at IGN.
00:44So I trust your opinion the most when it comes to these sorts of things.
00:48How does the Steam Machine make you feel?
00:50Well, I think it's important to note that the Steam Machine is basically just a mini gaming PC
00:57that's running Steam-less.
00:59Yeah.
01:00It's got a Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 graphics.
01:06So it's already quite a step above the Steam Deck.
01:10They were telling us that it was like six times more powerful.
01:13Roughly, yeah.
01:13The kind of sense I get is that it's basically like a Radeon 7600.
01:18So it's not going to be the most powerful thing on the market,
01:21but it doesn't need to be given how tiny it is.
01:23I mean, this is a box that's like yay big.
01:25Yeah, I kept describing it as if you took an Xbox Series X and then cut it in half.
01:31Yeah, the half Xbox.
01:32Yeah, the half Xbox.
01:33Yeah.
01:34Yeah, that's kind of the form factor they're working with.
01:37This thing is very small.
01:38It's smaller than any pre-built PC that you will get on the market.
01:42It's smaller than anything you could possibly build in the PC space,
01:46even if you use like a mini ITX form factor.
01:48It's fascinating.
01:50And obviously, like a lot of engineering went into, you know, actually making it fit into that.
01:56It's pretty powerful for the form factor.
01:58And I think what they were targeting, as they've said,
02:01is that they want to play games at 4K with FSR competently for anything that's out on Steam now.
02:09And, of course, that comes with a lot of variability in terms of image quality and frame rate.
02:15But I think that that's the base level that they're working with.
02:18And, of course, you can always tweak settings because this is essentially, you know,
02:22a PC running PC games through SteamOS.
02:25But that's the kind of power they were targeting.
02:27And so that's pretty sizable performance for what this thing is.
02:34And as a consequence, most of it is going to be cooling.
02:36It's pretty quiet, all things considered.
02:38It has a large fan in the back for exhaust.
02:41And, you know, obviously, they don't have to worry about battery because this is not a portable system.
02:46So they're able to pack a lot more of that.
02:48But I think the thing with the Steam machine is that it's so simple to use.
02:51It running SteamOS and then it integrating with Steam Cloud stuff
02:56and being able to use Proton as well.
02:59There's a lot of versatility with this.
03:02And it's kind of an example of the advancements that they've made on the software side.
03:07I think this is, like, designed more to be, like, the desktop version of SteamOS.
03:12You know, a lot of people, you know, have experience with SteamOS on, like, a desktop
03:16by just, like, plugging in a Steam Deck or installing SteamOS on their gaming PC.
03:21But, I mean, we saw it in there.
03:24That was where it was just, like, on a monitor with four different windows open.
03:28And, you know, people are going to be able to use this thing like they would a desktop system.
03:33So I think it's going to be really easy to, like, start with.
03:38But you're going to be able to, you know, do whatever you can with a PC with it.
03:44And it's going to be way easier to do that than it was on the Steam Deck,
03:47where you have to basically reboot the system to get into desktop mode.
03:51Now, we did get to play games with it as well.
03:53So we got to actually see how it performs rather than just talking about it on paper.
03:57And I was playing Silent Hill F and was really trying to figure out how to gauge its performance.
04:06We didn't really run benchmarks, but we were able to use the SteamOS overlay to give us FPS readings back.
04:12And, you know, with that as an example of a UE5 game, Unreal Engine 5 game,
04:17also Metal Gear Solid Delta, kind of gave me an idea of how it's going to be able to handle
04:23that level of that kind of game and the performance expectations that come along with that.
04:29And, you know, I was running Metal Gear Solid at 1080p, medium to high settings with anti-aliasing on there.
04:37Or I could go 1440p with FSR.
04:404K with FSR was a bit of a struggle both on Silent Hill F and Metal Gear Solid Delta.
04:45And you would probably have to bring down the settings a little bit more to get playable performance.
04:49But, you know, you kind of have to determine what's playable for you.
04:53And there's still a little tinkering that has to go along with it.
04:57But they did mention that they are doing Steam Machine compatibility and verifiability the same way that they do that for DEC.
05:05So for the folks who might not be in tune with how deep you can go with PC gaming,
05:10there will be that sort of seamlessness or there's a level in which they can figure it out for you.
05:17So you don't have to tinker with all those settings.
05:20So it's all about trying to make it seamless for people who might not have the wherewithal to dive into PC gaming that way,
05:27but also still give room for the flexibility of those who like to do that stuff.
05:32Yeah, I think it's important to highlight that I don't think there's going to be like the entire Steam libraries immediately on day one going to like have verified badges or not.
05:46So there's going to be some level of tinkering that you're going to have to do because, again, this is just a gaming PC.
05:52But one of the things that happened with the Steam Deck and will probably happen with the Steam Machine is game developers are going to have updates for their games coming out
06:04where they sense that it's running on the Steam Machine and it will automatically select a preset that'll run well on it.
06:13They even said they're going to have hooks in the API so that game developers can't actually sense that it's on a Steam Machine.
06:21So that's how I would expect the seamless, where the seamlessness come from because I don't think it's really going to come like right out of the box for most people.
06:29Yeah, yeah. Steam Deck definitely, it took time for it to get there.
06:31So part of this whole push to build a Steam ecosystem, not just with the Steam Machine, the Steam Controller is a big part of that as well.
06:40And we all remember the old Steam Controller and how it had some ideas, had some good ideas, but it wasn't quite there.
06:46But that led to the controls that you see on the Steam Deck.
06:50And then the success of the Steam Deck has now fed into Steam Controller 2 or the new Steam Controller where you have the trackpads, you have similar button feel,
06:59they have the TMR sticks, and all these different innovations are being packed into a new Steam Controller that also feeds into the advancements that we now have with SteamOS.
07:11And that being an integral part to how you can use Steam Machine as a console-like experience or in a home theater setup.
07:18So I'm actually really impressed with the Steam Controller and we both got to use it along with the Steam Machine.
07:24And how does it stack up to the rest of the controllers that you use? How did you feel?
07:30I was surprised because when I first saw it and I saw where the trackpads were placed on it, like right below each of the joysticks, I thought it looked kind of silly.
07:40Yeah.
07:40But holding it, it's comfortable. And obviously we only use it for collectively, not a very long time.
07:50And I think you don't really know a controller until you've played on it for like hundreds of hours.
07:56But yeah, I think it's good. It's a big step up from the first Steam Controller, which I have a soft spot in my heart for, for sure.
08:05But it was not the most comfortable thing to actually use.
08:10This seems a lot better.
08:11Yeah, this is a lot better. Like you said, when I first saw it on the slideshow that they showed us, I'm like, ooh, I don't know about that.
08:18Then you get them in your hands, I'm like, oh no, no, no, this feels like a proper controller.
08:22It might not look like it, but the way the trackpads are positioned, it doesn't get in the way, is what I'll say.
08:27So it does feel like I'm holding any other controller.
08:30And if you've used the Steam Deck, it feels a little bit similar to that.
08:33But there's a lot of more advanced features that take advantage of the capabilities of PC gaming.
08:39So for one, they have like one of the trackpads, you can also map them and customize the haptics on them.
08:47And you can do a lot of stuff in the back end with the Steam Input with what those trackpads actually do.
08:54And mapping macros to any of the buttons or any keyboard actions to them, that stuff exists in Steam Input and Steam OS.
09:03But now we have a controller that can also take advantage of all those capabilities and including gyro motion controls.
09:11And being able to use motion controls as if it was a mouse sensor, I think the use case I did was with Bellatro.
09:19And, you know, I played Bellatro with the traditional gamepad mapping.
09:22I played it with using the gyro motions and controlling the cursor that way.
09:27And how it detects your hand, whether or not you're gripping it, can activate certain things within the controller.
09:34So, for example, it wouldn't activate gyro controls unless I had a full grip on the controller.
09:40And if I loosen my grip, then it would revert back to normal controls.
09:43So the ways in which you can customize that kind of experience is unlike any other controller out there.
09:50They also obviously have the infrastructure through Steam itself to do all these sorts of things and make things that people are actually looking for, which kind of begs the question of, are people looking for VR now?
10:03With the Steam frame coming here, I think that was like the biggest question in my mind.
10:07Still a little skeptical, but...
10:09Yeah, for sure.
10:11But again, it's all part of what they're trying to figure out with, like, a lot of the controls that we saw on Valve Index also fed into Steam Deck as well.
10:22So nothing is, like, made in a vacuum with them.
10:26And the same thing applies for Steam Frame, which is their new VR headset.
10:30It is...
10:31It has standalone hardware, but it is also meant to be a streaming device, as in I'm streaming the feed of my more powerful PC directly into the headset itself.
10:45And that's possible through the wireless technology that they have that is really low latency and also is able to feed you the kind of visual fidelity that you need for VR.
10:58So while it is this, like, new VR headset, I think there are implications beyond VR that make it, like, a really fascinating product.
11:07It's a full system running on SteamOS, but rather than running on yet another, like, AMD co-engineered chip, it's running on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which is a smartphone chip.
11:19Yeah.
11:20It's incredible that they were able to bring Steam to that, to an ARM architecture, but also Proton.
11:27Yeah.
11:27But it just marks this, like, next evolution in Proton, where they're not only able to translate games from Windows to Linux, but from x86 to ARM, which is huge.
11:39Yeah.
11:39And, like, that opens up the possibility to just make these, like, really nice, easy ports of, like, mobile games, for instance.
11:48Yeah.
11:48Yeah.
11:49I think the level of performance from the internal hardware on the headset that we're expecting isn't going to, like, blow anyone away.
11:56And it's not meant, like you said, it's not meant for that.
11:59I was playing Hades, too, in home theater mode, and I was kind of impressed with the home theater mode.
12:05It looks really crisp.
12:06Yeah.
12:06It's kind of like the theater mode on, like, the Vision Pro, right?
12:11Yeah.
12:11Yeah, yeah.
12:12It's kind of like that, but I think the lenses, the 2160 by 2160 dual, like, obviously dual, because you have two lenses in that thing, right?
12:22Right.
12:22Unless you only have one eye, I guess.
12:23Yeah.
12:24Well, yeah.
12:25But it looks really crisp, and it was powerful enough to run a game like Hades, too.
12:31Of course, that's not, like...
12:32It's not saying much.
12:33It's not saying much, but you can play those kinds of games pretty competently just off of the headset alone.
12:39But, again, like, you can also link through their wireless technology, through the wireless dongle, that ultra-low latency, and just, like, play off of your PC in home theater mode.
12:49That dongle is fascinating.
12:50It is, it's the key to all of this.
12:53Yeah.
12:54Because, like, so, I primarily play games on a desktop, even though I've reviewed so many handhelds.
13:00When I'm playing, like, a demanding game, it's probably going to be on my desktop, and it just, like, lets me play those games on a, like, bigger, like, screen, essentially, but wirelessly.
13:15And it's able to do this through, like, a 6 gigahertz dongle that uses this, like, weird eye-tracking technology in order to transmit the pixels you're actually looking at faster than the rest of the pixels, so that it saves bandwidth.
13:29Yeah.
13:29Yeah, there's smart ways in which they're handling bandwidth through this wireless connection.
13:34I know they talked about foveated streaming.
13:37Yeah.
13:38Which is, like, foveated rendering, like, everything you're not looking at, lower resolution, what you are looking at will get higher resolution, better image quality.
13:46But now they're able to do that with the streaming feed that is coming from your PC to the headset.
13:51So, like, it's not a developer-side thing.
13:54That's just a thing that this wireless technology can do.
13:58So, it makes the VR experience pretty seamless if you're going that way.
14:03And I was playing Half-Life Alyx this way, and it was very responsive, and it looked great running off of a high-end PC.
14:10Yeah, they showed you it in, like, debug mode where it, like, really highlighted where that, like, foveated whatever is.
14:16Because when they turned it off after they showed you the debug mode, were you able to, like, notice any difference at all?
14:23I tried.
14:24I tried.
14:25Like, when they turned the tracking on, I was like, oh, wow, this is, like, very responsive.
14:29Yeah, yeah.
14:29And when it turned off, I was trying to catch whether or not I could see the image quality change or whatever.
14:36But it's so, it's really well done to where, like, yeah, I didn't notice anything.
14:40I was trying to snap my head really fast around the corner, or I was, like, moving my eyeballs hella fast.
14:46But it's gotten to the point where, like, the technology is there.
14:52Yeah.
14:52Where they can do these sorts of things that make VR a little bit more approachable or smarter in a better, like, gameplay experience.
15:01And, of course, with internal tracking as well, you don't have to worry about the lighthouses and setting up your space for that.
15:08But that also begs the question, I think we were hinting at earlier, is, like, is there room for VR games?
15:15Are people looking for VR games?
15:17I don't know.
15:20They certainly keep putting them out.
15:23And so there must be people playing them.
15:25Yeah.
15:25I don't personally use VR at all, but I don't know.
15:31What about you?
15:32I mean, I was with VR at the ground level.
15:36I reviewed the Vive and the Oculus Rift at the time, and I was always waiting for it to break out.
15:46It wasn't until Half-Life Alyx when I felt like this is now the new normal for VR, and I think it could be the next step for it.
15:53We've had a couple games here and there in VR that have been, like, great.
15:56Like, Asgard's Wrath is one of those, but I'm not sure if it's quite at the mass level still to this day.
16:04But apparently, you know, with the Steam frame, maybe it changes the conversation.
16:08Who knows?
16:10But if you're looking for VR hardware, this is the state-of-the-art stuff now.
16:15Yeah.
16:15It seems like it.
16:16For sure.
16:16And a lot of that feeds, like, again, like we said, all this feeds into Steam's larger ecosystem,
16:21where the things you see in Steam Controller are on the new VR controllers, which are, and all the seamlessness is all built into the Steam Machine.
16:30So all this technology is feeding into each other.
16:32So, yeah, I think what they're doing is really smart.
16:38Steam Machine is probably the biggest thing that I'm looking forward to, but the controller is, it might be, might be the most useful thing out of all of these.
16:46And Steam Frame, I'm still, you know, wondering if it has a place in gaming today.
16:53I think there's smart design decisions, like having the battery in the back.
16:56With the weight distribution, it's a lot easier to have on for long periods of time.
17:01It's comfortable to wear.
17:03It's easy to put on.
17:04It's easier to figure out.
17:06And in a way, I wish these questions were answered years ago.
17:09But at least they are now.
17:12So those are our initial thoughts of the Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame.
17:15And if you want more in-depth analysis, go check out our previews on IGN.com or our videos here on our YouTube channel as well.
17:22And if you want everything else covering Steam and Valve's new hardware, stick with IGN.
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