Valve and Steam are as synonymous with PC gaming as Ctrl-Z is with regret. They’ve powered platforms, pushed boundaries, and now, once again, they’ve decided to mess with hardware. And not in the half-hearted way they tried the first time.

Remember the original Steam Machines? No? That’s fine. Most gamers don’t either. Those were strange little Linux-based PCs made by third parties with SteamOS pre-installed. Ambitious but underpowered, they fizzled out quickly, leaving only a mild dent in the console war of their time.