The Steam Machine is the most ambitious game console I’ve ever played

My first day with the Steam Machine was a mess. Instead of enjoying a worry-free game console, I spent hours troubleshooting what felt like a finicky PC. That’s because the Steam Machine is a PC, with a very important twist. Since the Magnavox Odyssey came out in 1972, game consoles have been built with the same basic goal: to effortlessly play proprietary games on a TV screen. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have spent decades essentially selling the same product. A few consoles could do more, but the formula you know and love remains buy box, plug into TV, insert game, play. The Steam Machine aims to be something bigger. It’s a vision of a box with fewer restrictions and an almost endless catalog of games — for those willing to spend nearly twice the price of a PlayStation 5. That’s right. Today, Valve has announced the Steam Machine will start at $1,049 without a gamepad or $1,128 bundled with one, but you aren’t getting a significant boost in performance over the 5.5-year-old Sony PS5 you can still buy today. Even after three price hikes , a vanilla $650 PS5 offers sharper images in Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered in my tests. So how can Valve possibly charge over a grand, you might ask? The Steam Machine between the original PS5 (left) and PS5 Pro (right). It’s because the Steam Machine is, let’s say, a PC-plus. It’s a PC that acts more like a console than any you’ve used before. …