Yesterday we reported on a rumor that Valve could be working on the return of Steam Machines, to compete with game consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. Well, that rumor is officially over.
As reported by GamingOnLinux, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais debunked the rumor completely on Bluesky. But first, we’ll explain what happened and how it was debunked.
GamingOnLinux themselves pointed out that the rumor originated from Twitter user HandleDeck. They started speculating on potential Valve hardware, which was then picked up on eXtas1s. In turn, eXtas1s made their video with their own speculation, which was then covered by big video game press websites, including yours truly.
At the time, we didn’t know where eXtas1s got their information. And it wasn’t clear if the information he provided was backed up by other information he may have gotten from industry insiders, AKA people who work at Valve or with Valve.
So if this was all hearsay, what actually happened? The supposed real basis of the rumor is an update that Valve developer Samuel Pitoiset posted in Mesa graphics documentation. Contradicting eXtas1s’ claims, this was not an update to Vulkan, which is an API, but to Mesa, a set of open source graphics drivers. These drivers use APIs like Vulkan, as well as OpenGL, and others.
GamingOnLinux editor Liam Dawe pointed out that Valve regularly posts developer updates for Mesa on AMD hardware. In other words, these updates were never proof that Valve was working on new desktop hardware.
But here is where the real debunking comes in. Pierre-Loup Griffais shared the GamingOnLinux article on Bluesky, and said this:
“Thank you… we’ve done pre-release Mesa Vulkan work on every AMD architecture since Vega thanks to them kindly providing hardware, so there’s nothing meaningful to read into there.”
Griffais basically said that Dawe’s argument was correct, and subsequently, eXtas1s’ rumors and claims were not real at all.
We don’t particularly enjoy or seek out rumors to debunk. Of course, when these rumors spread, we expect the sources to do their due diligence, to be sure they have corroborated their information, and to disclose if they have any uncertainties or if they made some partial speculations from the rumor.
We report rumors on the good faith assumption that sources are trying to share real information, even if that information can change later down the line. But when rumors get debunked in this way, where it’s clear that the source was careless, it does not just harm their reputation, but also that of the games media.
And this is why we do our best to correct any mistakes we make, even if that means correcting our own sources.
To a certain degree, we’re sure this rumor spread, not just because game outlets like ours trusted eXtas1s, but because it’s something gamers want to believe. And it’s certainly credible that Valve would be interested in making a desktop gaming device after their success in the Steam Deck.
But a Valve employee has already clarified there was no evidence that they were working on something along those lines. We’re sure if they did have a project in the works, we wouldn’t have to wait that long to find out from Valve. This writer’s personal assessment is that Valve still has a long way to go to be successful in such an endeavor, but really the question is why would Valve bring back Steam Machines? This seems to indicate Valve hasn’t found a real answer that would shift this from a rhetorical question to a realistic business endeavor.
