Steam Frame Trademark Suggests Valve's Steam Machine Is Making A Comeback

Valve's original Steam Machine concept failed mainly because the software wasn't ready yet. That is demonstrably not the case anymore, as Linux-based machines are now able to run the majority of Windows gaming software with no compromises thanks to the company's pioneering work on Proton. Does that mean it's time for Valve to try again with a livingroom gaming PC? Maybe, and it might be called the Steam Frame.

At the very least, Valve is definitely developing something that it intends to release under that name, as the company went to the trouble of filing trademarks on "Steam Frame" in several different product categories, as you can see below:


So clearly, it's some kind of gaming device. But what is it? "Frame" sounds more like a tablet or some kind of digital picture frame than a gaming system, but "Deck" doesn't exactly sound like a game system either until you draw the connection to the concept of a "cyberdeck", a portable computing device in the seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer from 1984. With that line of thinking in mind, "Frame" could be a reference to mainframes—that is, a relatively large and stationary computing device with considerable power.

That description doesn't necessarily fit if the hardware inside is the same as the recently-leaked Fremont, though. Fremont, as we saw on Geekbench, uses a small, low-power AMD SoC with just two full-power Zen 4 CPU cores along with four lower-clocked Zen 4C dense cores. The desktop-class Radeon RX 7600 in the test system would certainly give that machine more horsepower than a Steam Deck by far, but it's still not really in the same class as something like a PlayStation 5; not really what we would call a "mainframe."


Another likely device to be described as a "Frame" is a pair of glasses—specifically, a VR headset. People have been waiting for a next-generation VR option from Valve for a while now, as the Index is getting a bit long in the tooth compared to its competition. Rumors have been swirling for years about "Deckard," the supposed codename for the Index's successor; this could be that. Right now, just before Christmas, would be a heck of a time to drop such a device.

It's also possible that the Steam Frame is some sort of dock for the Steam Deck. It would make sense to be called "frame" in that context, and while an official dock already exists for the Steam Deck, it's more about using the Deck as a PC than as a living-room game console. The Steam Frame trademarks seem to be slanted more that way, so perhaps the Frame could be a dock that includes better output hardware (like HDMI 2.2) and additional storage. The Deck's USB port only supports USB 10Gbps, so it's not really suitable for something like an external GPU.

Finally, Valve could feasibly be offering a traditional display. "Frame" is a perfectly sensible name for a screen, and a smart TV with Steam integrated and enough x86 horsepower inside to run the lower end of Steam games could be a compelling product. It would surely be more interesting to enthusiasts and hackers than a locked-down Arm device like most of the rest of the smart TV market.


Unfortunately, we really don't know anything concrete at this point, but you can bet that we'll be reporting on it as soon as we do. Let us know if you spot any news about the Steam Frame (or any Valve hardware) in the comments below!