While Nintendo unveiled the Switch2 less than a month ago, it could be that we could already be treated to a new hardware announcement in the video game industry. According to more and more rumors, coming straight from insiders, Valve is preparing a Steam video game console, which could rival the PS5 and Xbox Series X from Sony and Microsoft.
Is Valve entering the video game console dance?
Since the end of 2024, Rumors are circulating about the arrival of a new Steam console, produced by Valve. After the success of the Steam Deck, Valve could enter the home console market. And precisely, the ambitions would be quite big. According to insider eXtas1stv, him again, the console and the project do exist and the goal would be to compete with the PS5 and the Xbox Series X.
Insider eXtas1stv recently distinguished himself by being one of the first to confirm the arrival of Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 (and Switch 2). Today, he claims in a new video and on the social network xcancel.com that Valve is indeed producing a console that promises to be " spicy " and capable of standing up to the latest consoles from Sony and Microsoft.
Like the Steam Deck, this console would allow you to play all your PC games from your Steam library, but via a home video game console. This could be very interesting, but could also totally shake up the industry. For example, PC gamers could opt to buy a Steam console, rather than a PS5 to play exclusives. Sony could then review its strategy and stop porting its exclusives to PC.
In addition, although the Steam Deck has established itself and remains today one of the best devices in its category, it is not certain that the result will be the same with a home console. It will therefore be very interesting to see what Steam's plans are, the power and price of the machine. For the moment, no release window and no possible announcement date. So, watch this space.
- UPDATE – FEBRUARY 5, 2025
Following the recent rumors, Valve was quick to react through Pierre-Loup Griffais, a developer at Valve who wanted to speak out to calm things down. The latter confirmed that no plans for home game consoles were in place at Valve and that the origin of this rumor goes back to an update to the documentation for Mesa graphics drivers for the new AMD hardware.
Thus, Valve would not be preparing a new console. Pierre-Loup Griffais claims that for several years, the company has been funding developers to improve AMD Mesa drivers, but also the Linux ecosystem. He insists that this is not why Valve is developing its own console.
So of course, to this day, it is impossible to know if Valve is telling the truth and if this is not damage control to calm the rumor. Or if the sources of the various insiders are true. More than ever, we just have to wait and see how things evolve in the coming months. Of course, this would not be the first time that a company communicates to cover its tracks or make people believe in false leaks. The latest example to date is Nintendo, which had officially communicated to announce that all the rumors and leaks from late December and early January at CES in Las Vegas around the Switch2 were false. While in fact, everything was indeed true.
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