Mocked-up images of a new Steam Controller appear, as speculation rises around Valve revealing new gaming hardware this week

We may be about to see a whole new product line of Valve-made gaming hardware. Speculation suggests Valve has a new Steam Controller, virtual reality headset, and console-like device in development, and they may be revealed as soon as this week.

The speculation seems to originate from trusted leaker Brad Lynch (SadlyItsBradley), who stoked the fires overnight by sharing an AI-generated mock-up of what he says the new Steam Controller will look like. Notably, the haptic thumbpads have moved towards the bottom of the controller whereas they used to be towards the top. Lynch claims there’s full finger-tracking in the grips, and that the controller can detect how far away your hands are from the handles.

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“Yes. It’s an AI slop photo,” wrote Lynch on X. “Trained on a real image of the new controller. It was just fast and easy to do it this way. I was not going to post the original one just in case it reveals any sensitive info from the source.”

It’s also Lynch who suggested a reveal date of 12th November, according to a coherent round-up of Valve hardware rumours on Reddit. As you can see from that post, the bulk of the other patent-related rumours revolve around a new VR headset, which is believed to be codenamed Deckard – although it’s also sometimes referred to as Steam Frame. That name – Steam Frame – may also refer to a new operating system developed for the device. The information suggests we’re about to see another high-end VR headset priced at around the $1200 mark, possibly more.

The console rumours, meanwhile, revolve around something codenamed Valve Fremont, a games-capable box that features custom AMD processors and a Radeon graphics card. Again, the rumours originate from Brad Lynch, who highlighted the device’s appearance on cross-platform benchmarking site Geekbench earlier this year.

Valve has made considerable in-roads into the enthusiast-level games hardware space with the HTC Vive, a VR headset, and the more recent handheld device, Steam Deck. The attraction of a console-like device built to take advantage of Steam’s enormous gaming catalogue will be strong indeed. I wonder, if it’s true, how much it will cost.