Valve Might Be Working On A New Steam Console

Once upon a time, Valve made something called the Steam Machine, and it was essentially a new kind of console for your Steam library that you could plug into your TV. You could just as easily plug a gaming PC into your TV if you wanted. Those took up a lot more space though, and the Steam Machine was a more compact way to enjoy PC gaming from the couch. A new rumor suggests Valve may be working on a new Steam console powered by an AMD Radeon RX 9070 graphics card.

This doesn’t sound like something that would be too hard for Valve to accomplish. With the Steam Deck, Valve popularized handheld PC gaming and pushed it to new heights. The Steam Deck runs on Valve’s SteamOS, which is based on Linux. SteamOS runs exceptionally well and it has a great console-like interface that would work great on a TV. In fact, Steam Big Picture mode is more or less what SteamOS looks like. And if you plug your PC into your TV these days, you’ll have some idea of what gaming on a new Steam console could be like. This brings us back to Valve working on a new console-like piece of hardware. As it seems Valve might be trying once again to capture the living room.

A new Steam console could be powered by an RDNA 4-based AMD GPU

According to the rumor (which comes from @handledeck on X and was spotted by Wccftech), Valve is currently working on drivers for the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU. It’s worth noting that the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU isn’t available yet, and AMD is expected to launch the series a little later this year.

Since this is just a rumor it’s probably a good idea to take the information with a grain of salt. Valve is already working continuously to add new features and support for the Steam Deck. So there’s always the question of whether or not Valve even has the time to develop new hardware. It’s also currently working on Deadlock and still continuing to work on Counter-Strike 2. Throwing a whole new Steam console of sorts in the mix would be a lot of extra work.

Especially when you consider how long Valve worked on the Steam Deck. That being said, a new console for your Steam library is one explanation for why Valve would be working on drivers for AMD’s yet-to-be-released GPU. Valve also may be working on these drivers to set up manufacturers to make their own console-like hardware for SteamOS.

The one thing to take into account here is the cost. As Wccftech points out, a console with an AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU inside would not be cheap. And based on Valve’s decision to price the Steam Deck so low for the base model, a Radeon RX 9070-powered Steam console seems like a tiny bit of a stretch. At least if it comes from Valve.

The console is reportedly codenamed Fremont

In addition to the possible existence of a Steam console, the rumor also suggests that Valve already has an internal codename for it. Fremont. Fremont is a neighborhood in Seattle. Valve is based in Seattle. So we could see how the name would fit. It’s still just a codename though and provides no other evidence of the hardware’s existence at this time. That also doesn’t make it any less of an interesting piece of information.