Machine learnings

With Steam Machine revived and Xbox betting on Windows, will 2026 bring down the walls between PC and console?

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Xbox Ally X sales have beaten expectations, according to manufacturer Asus. What does that mean in real numbers? "Hundreds of thousands per year," McWhirter reckons

Looking back on the gaming hardware stories of 2025, it's clear that the first six months belonged to Switch 2. After June 5, however, the playing field was wide open again, and Xbox soon picked up the baton. Just three days after Nintendo's console launched, Xbox announced the handheld ROG Xbox Ally. Then, less than a month after Ally's release, Valve threw its hat back into the hardware ring, revealing the Steam Frame VR headset, Steam Controller and Steam Machine. The latter offering has drawn the most attention, as it contributes to an increasingly porous division between gaming PCs and consoles.

A squat black cube that's designed to sit under your TV, and a chunky handheld for playing PC games on the move? Not so long ago, if you were asked to guess which of these was made by Valve and which by Xbox, you'd say the cube was Xbox and the handheld was Valve. Now, it's the other way around. Steam Machine looks a lot like an Xbox Series X, but with the more diminutive dimensions of a Series S. ROG Xbox Ally, meanwhile, is very clearly inspired by Steam Deck, and built to occupy the 'triple-A gaming on the go' market Valve has opened up (with more than a little help from Switch).

Physical design may seem a superficial basis for comparison, but those moulded plastic chassis speak to something larger: a sense that these two companies, and the worlds they represent, might be swapping places. It's not only the hardware - the next Halo, Campaign Evolved, is coming to PS5. Xbox started releasing its exclusives on other platforms in 2024, but the move carries extra symbolic weight when what was once the jewel in Xbox's firstparty crown goes multiplatform. Meanwhile, the widely held expectation is that the next Xbox console will run on Windows.