Phoronix article: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Machines-Frame-2026
Also listed here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
Valve has already sent support for the new Steam Controller upstream: https://www.phoronix.com/news/New-Steam-Controller-SDL
There are a lot of specs missing from what the streets were hoping for from the holy grail of VR headsets, but I'm starting to believe that they are not going for that. It seems they want to win in the mid-range market competing directly with Meta. Honestly, "Quest 3 without Meta" is already very compelling. I guess it's not all down to how competitively they decide to price it. "Cheaper than Index" is already good news for my wallet at least.
I don't see it in the hardware design, but from a software perspective the groundwork is there for modularity. Offloading the core compute to the PC frees up onboard processing to run peripherals like full color front cameras (onboard are black and white / IR) and more advance proximity detection, hell hook up lidar and go nuts with full body tracking.
That said, all of that would depend on decent I/O. 2x USB4 ports would go a long way.
https://youtu.be/dU3ru09HTng
Welp, looky there, an expansion port right on the bridge of the headset with PCIE compatibility.