The next console you buy will be a PC. That’s the pitch behind Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox, dubbed Project Helix, and Valve’s long-awaited and still-unpriced Steam Machine. If you want a hint of what the future of gaming may entail, you don’t have to look far.
Enter the Playnix Console. It may look like a record player crossed with an Xbox Series S, but this is an independent device running a full PC build inside its 12.6 x 9.7-inch, 3D-printed chassis. It’s comparable in size to a slim PlayStation 5 and comes with the benefits of modern and upgradable PC components under the hood.
The specs may not seem like much, especially considering its $1,140 price tag. The Playnix Console includes an AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU, a Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a base of 512GB of storage. The GPU is why you should be paying attention. The Playnix Console will be one of the few self-contained gaming devices capable of running AMD’s FSR Redstone upscaler. It’s why Playnix can promise the console can play a game like Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K and 60 fps. YouTuber Russ Crandall at Retro Game Corps took the console through its paces and found it could offer good performance for lower graphics settings in games at 4K resolution.
If you haven’t seen AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution tech on PC, you may have caught a glimpse of the updated PSSR running on Sony’s (now $900) PlayStation 5 Pro. It allows for games to render at a lower resolution and take those performance savings when upscaled to the higher resolution. AMD and Sony worked together on PSSR and FSR Redstone. It’s clear the next-gen PS6 and Xbox Project Helix will rely heavily on similar upscaling technology.
The Playnix Console’s 16GB of RAM is also upgradable, the same as its relatively limited SSD. Rather than its own controller, you get an 8BitDo Ultimate 2 in the box. Sure, that’s not a Steam Controller with the extra trackpads, but it’s a fine gamepad in its own right. Unlike a Steam Machine, which will run a revised version of SteamOS built for big screens, Playnix uses its own separate version of Arch Linux. It being a PC means you can install forks of Linux like Bazzite if you want a more Steam-centric experience.
Get ready for more PC/console hybrids
The compact Playnix Console comes with the EmuDeck branding—namely, the software that made emulation on Valve’s Linux-based Steam Deck so seamless. The creator behind that project—who goes by DragoonDorise online—previously told Gizmodo they had been working on some kind of device resembling a Steam Machine. Their project hit snags late in 2024 that set things back. Then, the creator released a few models to Patreon backers before offering a wider release.
There are other alternatives other than the Playnix Console. Minisforum already has its $1,440 AtomMan G1 Pro with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX CPU and discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU. Either that or the Playnix Console may be more powerful than the Steam Machine’s semi-custom AMD APU (accelerated processing unit), which combines the CPU and GPU on a single chip. Pure performance isn’t the path forward. We could see optimization come back in a big way. Earlier this month, Valve software engineer Natalie Vock posted a software hack to offer better performance at higher resolutions on systems with less VRAM available, like the Steam Machine.
If you still hope to stick with Windows, Microsoft’s next OS update will include the touted Xbox Mode to make your PC easier to navigate with a controller. We have yet to test it, but it’s likely a beta of the interface we’ll see on the next-gen Xbox. The melding of PC and consoles has already begun. While the Playnix Console at $1,140 sounds pricey, we still don’t know the cost of Project Helix or a Steam Machine. With memory prices at record highs across the computing industry, you shouldn’t expect this next generation of gaming to be cheap by any imagination.
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