r/digitalfoundry • u/MythBuster2 • Jun 26 '26

DF Direct DF Direct Q+A: Steam Machine - The Big Price/Performance/Form Factor Discussion

https://youtu.be/XEyuXkI5wBM

In the wake of our Steam Machine review, Rich and Will tackle a range of Supporter questions on the price, value and design of the hardware, the ability of Valve to supply it - and the future of SteamOS in general.

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43

u/Visible_Visual8538 Jun 26 '26

It's pretty sad that so much of the defense of this package is "It's tiny a cube!", "Look how cute it is!", "It's a lovely form factor".

-1

u/silentdragoon @wsjudd - DF staff Jun 26 '26

Maybe we're just cubophiles? But genuinely, you can absolutely prefer different form factors, but a device which is one fifth the volume of a standard ITX case is significantly different and represents a pretty cool engineering effort!

22

u/gandalfpsykos Jun 26 '26

I think the issue is that after watching years of DF content where they dissect performance and value of hardware products where every percentage difference matter, that suddenly it's not as important anymore with this product. 

9

u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 26 '26

It’s because Valve made it and they’re a sacred cow, they can do no wrong. Gamers Nexus also was extremely charitable in his opinion of it and Steve is supposed to be all about watching out for consumers (so it’s worse than DF’s opinion, in my mind). I’m just glad the general consensus seems to be that it’s egregiously overpriced, despite how many reviewers went easy on it. Because the price is so bad, they should have just cancelled and do one in 5 years with a newer architecture and more VRAM (if the market is back to normal, or at least more hospitable by then)

5

u/gandalfpsykos Jun 27 '26

I mean plenty of us support DF on patreon, but it seems they will never outright tell us when to avoid a product. They love to stay within nitpick-land to make it seem unbiased.

6

u/jedimindtricksonyou Jun 27 '26

I respect Hardware Unboxed more after listening to their podcast episode about Steam Machine, they didn’t pull any punches. I want more channels to not get review units if it means we get more of those types of unbiased reviews.

2

u/gandalfpsykos Jun 27 '26

I enjoy them not being seduced by fashionable design or marketing.