The next step for Steam may be a PC VR console, but is that what gamers want?

If you are into gaming, then there’s no real need for me to explain who Valve is. This team not only brought us Half-Life: one of the most revolutionary games of all time, but are also the ones behind Steam: one of the world’s largest PC gaming platforms.

But Valve isn’t all about software. In fact, Valve’s Index is one of the best VR headsets on the market. They also made the Steam Deck recently and that’s just a portable PC with a screen like a console, and I can’t describe to you in words how much I love it.

Despite the fact that the Index is still one of the most used VR headsets, Valve may actually be making a new one, labeled Deckard. This was discovered by a youtuber called Brad Lynch and now, he’s found a new lead indicating that Valve may also be making a standalone console, dedicated to PC VR.



Salt shakers at the ready, everyone! You know how it goes: since it’s just a rumor, we can’t trust it, regardless of how much of a cool dude Brad seems to be. Until Valve itself reveals more info about the project, we’re just having fun here.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s consider the meat of the matter: what would a PC VR console be? The simplest way in which I can imagine it is that it’s basically a PC running SteamOS — the same Linux distro that powers the Steam Deck — and is then fine-tuned to work with Valve’s current and upcoming headsets.

But does that make any sort of sense? I mean, if it’s costly, then you can basically just build a PC, buy a headset and use that instead, right?

Well, not really. PC VR gamers can tell you that some games are really intense! As such, a lot of horsepower is required. And do you know what uses a lot of horsepower? That’s right: Windows.

Because, if anything, Valve proved that it knows what it's doing on the software side of things with the Steam Deck. The hardware doesn’t sound impressive until you see something like Elden Ring running on the thing with a stable framerate, and looking good doing it.

In other words: having an optimized system, dedicated to VR, made by people who understand the technology, may in fact result in a product that provides a ton of value for its cost, just like the Steam Deck. And if Valve really is making a new headset, then making just this type of system to go along with it makes all of the sense in the world.

And then, you can still install Windows and run that on it, if you want to. If the thing actually gets made, that is.