1 hour of Death Stranding 2 on Steam Machine sparks heated debate

Just over a month after launch, Steam Machine has already changed how IGN hardware reviewer Jacqueline Thomas games in the living room. She says she now prefers it to her PS5 and Xbox Series X. The device is a $1,000-plus compact PC, and Thomas is not arguing that it outperforms consoles on paper. Instead, she says it finally parks her Steam library in the same spot as her PS5 and Xbox. She even uses a one-hour session with Death Stranding 2 as proof that platform friction can end a playthrough faster than a frame-rate dip.

Thomas's piece is less a spec-sheet showdown than a verdict on where the device actually fits. Steam Machine is roughly half the size of a standard console, she notes, but it costs more than a thousand dollars. At that price, it sits closer to a niche PC build than a mass-market console replacement. She treats the unit as a trial run for a second-generation living-room PC: a way to move her Steam catalog into the entertainment center without pretending that PS5 and Xbox have disappeared.

That judgment comes from several weeks of side-by-side use. Thomas says she is not a traditional console player. For roughly two decades, nearly every game she has bought has been on Steam. Her PS5 and Xbox Series X are mostly gap-fillers, used for subscription titles or the occasional exclusive. That library concentration is what made Steam Machine click for her. After weeks of direct comparison, she says she found the right way to use it and concluded it was effectively irreplaceable—for her.

That contrast is sharpest with console exclusives. Thomas mentions Death Stranding 2, a major release she put down after roughly one hour and simply forgot. The problem was not the game itself; it was platform lock-in. The title was stuck in the living room, and that one-room restriction was enough to break the habit. For her, where a game lives turned out to decide whether she keeps playing more than any review score or benchmark.

PC gaming, by comparison, already moves with her. The same save can jump between her desktop, a handheld, and a laptop, letting a session continue on whichever screen is closest. The living room was the remaining hole in that setup. Earlier living-room PC experiments annoyed her: where to stash a keyboard and mouse, and full-tower cases that looked out of place under a television. Steam Machine, she argues, nearly fixes both problems. SteamOS's game mode covers ordinary navigation, and if she needs desktop mode the Steam Controller's touchpad is enough—no extra peripherals cluttering the couch. In her account, the couch becomes just another stop in a multi-device Steam library rather than a separate ecosystem.

A weekend with the machine made the point concrete. Feeling ill, she plugged Steam Machine into her TV, dropped the output to 1440p instead of 4K, and found the image perfectly fine from the couch. She spent the next two days with Resident Evil 4 Remake and Final Fantasy VII Remake. She admits she could not confirm a locked 60fps and could not say whether the picture was better than the PS5 version. Her verdict: none of that mattered. She could resume her PC saves and avoid buying a second copy on PS5 just to play on the couch.

The recommendation is as narrow as the audience. Steam Machine is a hard sell to anyone who just wants a conventional console; the $1,000-plus entry fee blows up the usual console math. It is aimed at players who already own thousands of games on Steam and want to play that PC library locally in the living room. For that group, saved re-purchase costs, continuous saves, and a compact footprint make it close to a dream come true—benefits that may easily matter more than native 4K or a guaranteed 60fps.

In the process, Thomas's piece has become a talking point among players about whether the living-room PC has finally found its audience—or whether it remains a luxury curiosity.