The Steam Machine is back from the dead this morning after being buried in 2018 due to lack of response. With the launch of the new Steam Machine this morning, Valve is looking to return to the console arena. It will only go on sale next year but Valve has already confirmed that they will allow third parties to offer their own Steam Machine in the future.
This move is not surprising as Valve also allowed the same thing after the original Steam Machine was launched in 2015. This is certainly not surprising as this year SteamOS is also supported on hardware other than the Steam Deck. A few months ago the Lenovo Legion Go S became the first third-party console to be offered with SteamOS after a long time only supporting Windows 11.
Although SteamOS is based on Linux, the Proton system used allows Windows games to run without major issues and does not require developers to do the porting process themselves. Valve's announcement this morning is seen as having an impact on the future of Xbox.
Microsoft seems to have confirmed that the next Xbox will be a PC with an Xbox Fullscreen Experience interface layer. Steam Machine with SteamOS has the potential to give competition to Xbox as it offers smoother performance when compared to Windows 11.
