This Steam Machine was Ahead of its Time
Thank you to RedMagic for sponsoring! Check out the 11 Air at https://bit.ly/4a79bb6 ~ I’ve found a Steam Machine Prototype, but it’s not a modern one, this is from 2014, before Valve had even launched their initial batch of Steam Machines. Let’s take a look inside, outside and at all the sides. Maybe we can figure out Valve’s Steam Machine and SteamOS plans. We might even be able to unpick Gabe Newell’s thinking when he called Windows a Catastrophe!
⌚Timings⌚
00:00 The Alienware Alpha R1 Steam Machine
02:56 Steam OS 1.0
04:40 Steam Machine History
06:28 REDMAGIC
07:52 Steam Machine History
10:12 Steam OS 2.0
12:32 SteamLink
14:05 Steam Machine Game Over
15:45 Steam OS 3.0
17:35 Steam OS Alternatives
19:09 Steam Machine 2026
🔗Video Links🔗
🏆 Support 🏆
Support my channel, get exclusive videos & perks, as well as an ad and sponsor free experience at https://www.patreon.com/nostalgianerd from just $1
🏪 NN Shop & Affiliate Links! 🏪
My eBay Shop: https://nnerd.es/NerdShop (Now Re-open!)
My Retro Tech book: http://nnerd.me/HVFtSB (2nd edition is out!)
🍻 Share/Like 🍻
If you wish to share this video in forums, social media, on your website, or ANYWHERE else, please do so! It helps tremendously with the channel! Also, giving a thumb up or down also helps with visibility on Youtube. Many thanks!
📟 Subcribe 📟
Click to Subscribe: https://nnerd.es/2K4TYvX
📱 Join me on Social Media 📱
🐥 http://www.twitter.com/nostalnerd
🎮 http://www.twitch.tv/nostalgianerd
👱🏼📘 http://www.facebook.com/nostalnerd
📸 http://www.instagram.com/nostalgianerd
🌍 http://www.nostalgianerd.com
🎥 Equipment 🎥
Panasonic Lumix G5
Rode NT-1 Mic
Corel Video Studio Ultimate 2020
Corel Paint Shop Pro 2020
📜 Resources 📜
In video links and references are provided where possible. If you believe I have forgotten to attribute anything, please let me know (drop me an email via. the about page on Youtube or send me a tweet), so I can add it here. Apologies if I have missed anything out, it takes time to make these videos and therefore it can be easy to forget things or make a mistake.
Errors and omissions excepted.
Some material in this video may be used under Fair Dealing / Fair Use. Where under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 (UK: Sections 29 and 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), allowance is made for purposes including parody, quotation, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, education and research. Fair Dealing / Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
@alexanderwhite7105
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
I loved my Alpha! Played like 200 hours of Overwatch on that bad boy
@techkev140
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Steam OS… Where is the Steam… OS? Me thinks i need this. 🙃
@RivieraStyx
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Got to play with my friend's older brother's og steam machine back in the day!
I thought it was a great idea for console gamers like me.
So glad the Gabe cube is coming soon!
@Jef_Vermassen
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Steam link I used a lot, pretty much let my PC run all the emulation and played those games on the couch. Wife also used it to play Steam games if she didn't feel like sitting at the desk.
As for the Steam controller, got it when they were clearing out. Only use it for games you play with a mouse on the tv. Works really well, so it has its niche uses but I'd never use it for most genres of games. Mostly the community that did the work to make it easy to use with the button layouts you can download.
@joeykeilholz925
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Steam hardware beta profile badge havers rise up
@delukard07
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
i have seen some of these in my country marketplace.
can we install windows on it?
@TimothyKist
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
The controller couldn't have been released in 2025, 2015? Was playing Portal 2 on my phone using a 3d printed controller clamp for the SC via steam link around 2017
@MegaManNeo
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Your video only now popped up in my feed. It's great however! I wanted the original Steam Machine really bad back then but even as an already Linux user – let alone the asked price for it – I rather spend money on the (extremely underrated) WiiU and my PCVR setup at the time.
The Steam Controller is fun to use however! If I had a bigger screen in my bedroom, I'd probably have one of the Steam Links also set up, which I've used in the flat share I lived in at the time to play with others.
@meh78336
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Every time I hear "made their own" or similar, bender pops up in my head with "with blackjack and hookers" 😀
@sgt_s4und3r54
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Stilm have 2 of them myself and 2 steam controllers.
@tjtarget2690
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Notification Squad! 😀
@InabaPrism
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
These made no sense. They were worse PCs for people that already owned better PCs.
@bland9876
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
"Let's take the best controller ever made and discontinue it" said someone at Valve.
Years later "let's release a Dock so that you can play your steam deck on the TV but any game that doesn't work very well with a regular controller even though we solved the problem years before and then decided to stop solving the problem we're going to continue to leave the problem unsolved excellent idea guys someone should give me a medal"
@Sarge92
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
it really wasnt "ahead of its time"
valve asked them to make a affordable home console machine they could sell
they made a over 1 grand machine that cost more than the average high end raming rig and performed the same or worse than the average gaming machine
alienware got greedy and fucked the whole project up
this is why you wont get a steamdeck 2 for a long while valve aint interested in making a expensive box and have made it clear
"we are not considering a steam deck 2 at this time in order for us to consider it there would need to be a major shift in technology to where a new more powerfull chipset becomes affordable at the price point we are after"
meanwhile lenovo dropped the legion 2 twice the price for only 30% more speed
@Adam-jw3uz
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
I managed to pick one of the Alienware Steam Machines for $50 a few years back, I figured anyone holding onto them was dumping them after the Deck came out. Dusted out the guts, put in a fresh SSD, installed Bazzite, works great! Graphically it's actually pretty comparable to the Deck as well, so it doesn't feel like I'm compromising too much.
It's also a fantastic way to set up party games, indie Steam games, or even non-Steam PC games like Robotnik Ring Racers at a local convention without fear of someone swiping my Deck or trashing my PC.
And yes, I still have four Steam Controller 1.0s that I love to use on the thing.
@grahamwilson4053
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Proton is probally neccesary yes, but Valve really should still support its own platform natively. One day Microsoft could choose to break the Windows API just to trip up Proton and Wine. It would not cost Valve much to say offer lower store fees to developers offering native SteamOS builds of their games.
@COACTUSFECI2
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
i remeber well,cause the price… but nice device at this time…
i would like to have it.. is it upgradeable with ram etc.? yeah the new controller…i hope it get not so expensive. idont know exatcly…if i had this old steam controller in my hands,in my past..but it looks big.
for me the best controler is from ps4 .this ps5 controller is nice but…..hmm ,but i like the ps4 controller more..
@MCJeffsy
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
A great idea for it's time. I almost bought an Alienware Alpha back in the day. Hopefully the new steam machine is a success!
@simonsunnyboy
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
I bought the i5 8GB model in 2015 and run it until early 2025 as my main gaming rig.
I used Windows 8.1 and WIndows 10 with the Hivemind UI and I was fully satisfied.
Not perfect console as advertised but a much better gaming PC than a tower PC.
Esp. as it ran my complete existing Steam and GOG library. For any "real" console I would have needed to buy all games new.
Only PUBG and Counterstrike 2 made me buy something more modern last year 😉
I personally was fully satisfied with my buy over the whole time.
I still have it with box running Batocera Linux as a portable PC for gaming parties.
@danimourinho
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
That Alien UI looks it was XBMC/KODI????
@Fazzical-og
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Great video, but please clarify that the Steam controller was not released on the 10th of November 2025 (time stamp 10:55) but in November 2015
@DekkaTr0n
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
I had one of these. If I remember correctly, you could choose the components inside of it and it was upgradable with extremely expensive modules inside. It was actually an amazing console. BUT…the usability on a TV left something to be desired and it was also incredibly expensive. I honestly believe the price was its biggest issue. It also had nothing but PC games and going up against the "Big 3" at that time with their exclusives and substantially cheaper prices was the beginning of the end for the Alpha and other Steam Machines of the time. It is quite different these days.
@demorunnertimmedrt4432
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
I want now to take my crappy mini pc and turn it into a steam machine.
@RodBrett
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Honestly, at the time I really saw the potential here. I got a chance to demo a bunch of them at GDC and even in the early days of my own home setup, I was obsessed with the idea of playing PC games on my couch via my TV's inputs. So much so that I remember even buying HDMI to DVI convertors or trying to find TV displays with DVI inputs because I was doing this even before HDMI became a stadard on GPUs. I wanted to PC game on my TV, dammit and I was going to jump through whatever hoops I had to in order to do so.
@SaltGrinder
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Bro that thing was a piece of shit, I had one. 860m…. no way to upgrade said gpu… or really anything I think?
faulty cmos battery problems that would make the thing not want to boot over time without doing several power cycles/restarts.
I ripped the harddrive out of it and turned the shell into e-waste once it stopped booting permanently… got a ROG small form factor prebuild… that was actually older but allowed me to swap out and upgrade the hardware.
Which would have really made this thing more worth fixing… the lack of the ability to upgrade components was braindead.
And while I'm extremely interested in the new Steam machine from my understanding they're doing the same dumb shit where I cannot change/or upgrade the GPU after purchase (maybe with the exception of being able to use an external GPU setup, maybe? I dunno) I love Valve but a PC-centric company should understand how tone deaf that is. Perhaps it's intentional to turn it into a generational hardware with many iterations (ie more opportunities to nickle and dime folks that don't want to build pcs)
I think the form factor is fucking stupid with impending obsolesce. Like sure it's neat… temporarily until a couple years go by. I think it will be looked at as the same sort of novelty as the original shot in a couple years.
@DylanPwnt
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
Yeah I built a M-ITX build for my living room setup and can't complain, really like my old Corsair 250D case. Just fits under one of my speakers.
@DaWrecka
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
The Steam Controller is underrated and I'm desperately hoping the Steam Controller 2 has the two-stage triggers of its older brother, but I'm not hopeful. When I got my Steam Deck OLED I was disappointed to learn it had only single-stage triggers.
My Steam Controller is so heavily-used that the rubber on the analogue stick is all but gone. This is one I bought brand-new directly from Valve. Through Steam, even.
@shia_labeouf
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
21:17 Not anymore you don't.
@hexshadow6647
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
I am positive that none of yiu understand just how not ahead of its time these newer products coming out are.
@theoneanton
May 12, 2026 at 1:49 am
The Alienware R7 is my PC. It's rad