PC Gaming

“I think it’s a little bit less important to have a fixed performance target for 5 years or something for a product like [the Steam Machine],” Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais tells PC Gamer. “I don’t think we’re thinking about it with quite as long of a time frame as something like a Steam Deck.” Though it doesn’t sound like there are any near-term plans for a refresh of some kind.

When is a gadget simultaneously good value and overpriced?

Valve has been trying to crack the living room for more than a decade, and the new Steam Machine is its best attempt yet. It’s a little bit PC, a little bit console, and a lot pricy — starting at $1,049, it had a lot to live up to. The Verge’s Sean Hollister has been testing the device, and shares his findings on whether the Steam Machine can hang with PlayStation and Xbox. He also explains why, despite a never-ending list of challenges, Valve is still trying to make this device work.

According to Aftermath’s Chris Person, Valve pointed to the Steam Deck’s recent price increase as an indicator. Following those changes, the PC handheld costs $789 for the 512GB version and $949 for the 1TB version. The Steam Machine, on the other hand, starts at $1,049.

It costs $129.95, ships late July, and includes a few goodies beyond the dedicated chassis for Steam’s upcoming console. You can save $30 by buying the “Poverty Cube,” which ditches the extras, but you’ll have to wait until October to get it. Does this mean the Steam Machine itself is imminent?

Rockstar Games says preorders will be available “on digital storefronts and at other select retailers,” and revealed the game’s cover art in a teaser video:

Three months after Valve’s doozy of an update arrived in preview — the first with support for the Steam Machine and a whole lot more — it’s getting a full stable release. Here’s the changelog. But when will the Steam Machine arrive? Valve’s had quite a few shipments now...

That’s according to Silicon Motion (SMI) vice president Nelson Duann, who told Tom’s Hardware the memory shortage is pushing PC makers to buy third-party SSDs, while saying suppliers expect it will get worse in 2027:

That’s according to Best Buy’s listing for the MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus — and it’s “early bird” pricing, MSI’s Anne Lee tells The Verge. After retailers run out of their first batches of units, MSI expects them to sell the handheld for $1,799, like MSI’s US store already is.

Like previous Halo titles, unlockable skulls in Halo: Campaign Evolved will allow you crank up explosions, turn down gravity, or celebrate every grunt headshot with confetti and fanfare. You can even mimic the gameplay of the classic Halo: Combat Evolved, or enable remixes of skulls for randomized choas.

Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball acknowledged during a The Game Business Live interview at Summer Game Fest that the wave of cancellations happened over just a few months after the October price hike. Ball also admitted that “the value of the offering has now changed,” since Call of Duty games won’t be available day-one on Game Pass anymore.

PC Gamer points out a report from Dutch outlet Tweakers claiming that several GPU manufacturers aren’t expecting AMD’s next-gen GPUs to arrive until at least the second half of 2027. Some are saying the wait for RDNA 5 could be even longer, until early 2028.

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I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but I dig the mysterious vibe. A demo is available now.

Dave the Diver is getting jungle-themed DLC: Dave the Diver: In the Jungle. It’s launching on June 18th.

Game Freak shared another look at Beast of Reincarnation, its upcoming Soulslike where you’re teamed up with a big dog. Looks great, though if the dog dies at the end, I’m going to be mad.

Ascenders: Beyond the Peak combines two of my favorite genres — seems promising. It will be out in early access in Q3, and a demo is available now.

Here’s the first trailer for Signet City, “a first-person fungalpunk RPG” from Gareth Damian Martin. I’m intrigued. It’s in development for PC, though it doesn’t have a release date yet.

Check it out on YouTube — we’ll be watching, too!

“I did not say it’s coming,” AMD VP David McAfee tells Tom’s Guide, regarding FSR 4.1 with INT8 for RDNA3 iGPUs. In plain English? The graphics boost in this video may not actually come to today’s AMD gaming portables, even though it clearly works and is coming to older desktop cards:

Colorado’s governor signed the SB26-051 age verification bill into law with its exemption for open-source, while Linux usage on Steam is down a little over one percent from April’s peak.

They start at £3,749.99, and there’s a model on Chillblast’s website that costs £15,999.99. But just imagine playing 007 First Light on them! The immersion — the type of PC only James Bond could afford!