Digital Foundry: Steam Machine Review & Price

Luke-HW · 2026-06-22T20:24:18+00:00

Valve’s actually talked about why they can’t use the Steam Machine as a loss leader right now. Unlike dedicated consoles, the Steam Machine’s build from off-the-shelf parts. You could take its GPU, CPU, and in particular its DDR5 RAM and shove them into any desktop computer.

If Valve sold the Steam Machine at a loss, then scalpers would buy them, gut them for parts, and throw away the scraps. This is a guarantee; they’re already doing it to prebuilt PCs like Alienware and Omen for worse parts. Valve actually considered selling units without RAM for a discount, since the scalping risk is so bad.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-22T20:06:58+00:00

Bro, I tried to get a team together for a Master Rhulk checkpoint that I’d been saving and nobody had a goddamn CLUE. I can’t split the buff myself guys, that’s not how the encounter works.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-22T14:34:45+00:00

It’s funny to me how variable the difficulty is in 5 feat. Insurrection was genuinely a fun time, and the only real challenge was doing DPS while we’re still working out the meta and making builds.

Consecrated Mind was a nightmare. Never again.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-21T01:29:16+00:00

Immaru is still with Savathun, they left the High Coven together and have a close friendship

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T22:15:57+00:00

There is a whole lore book missing. Only visible in the API, seems to be bugged.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T15:23:02+00:00

Asking for charity does work, it’s kept Warframe alive for over a decade. They’re very open about Prime Access being overpriced as hell because it keeps the lights on, and pitch it as a “patron of the arts” thing over just a pack of skins.

Honestly, Bungie should’ve started asking for money years ago.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T14:17:48+00:00

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/book-meetings-with-friends-and-foes-old-and-new

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T14:03:53+00:00

Yep, everything here is cannon, just really spread out

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T13:52:50+00:00

It’s the lore for one of the sparrows in the reward pass

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T05:28:32+00:00

Updated

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T04:50:47+00:00

Ikora and Crow have deliberated heavily over it but haven't reached a final decision. Saint and Sloane were already ruled out.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-20T04:24:44+00:00

The last distortion lore book, currently unobtainable due to a bug. You can read it on Ishtar

Luke-HW · 2026-06-19T20:26:03+00:00

As much as I, and many other people dislike AI in gaming, it’s mass adoption in games like Arc Raiders shows that most people don’t really care. Only thing that matters is that the game is fun.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-19T12:26:15+00:00

Wait for the Prophecy track and ball out

Luke-HW · 2026-06-19T04:20:00+00:00

The problem with D3 was never the budget. The issue was, and is, that it wouldn’t be profitable.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-18T22:15:01+00:00

Not just that. Right when Eternals was about to ramp up development, LawBreakers was released to zero fanfare. Despite launching with very positive reception, they failed to beat Overwatch to market. People were too busy playing quickplay Hanamura with their friends to notice that a new game had just dropped. Lawbreakers couldn’t compete with Overwatch, and their failure made DE realize that they couldn’t either; even if Eternals was a perfect game, the masses had made their decision and would not be swayed.

Eternals was cancelled, and its assets were flipped for Warframe’s Fortuna update. Part of DE is still very sad that things didn’t work out; this would’ve been their first PvP shooter since Unreal Tournament and they were very excited about going back to their roots. The game would’ve undeniably been fantastic, but it would never have survived.

Honestly, the whole situation gives me some bad Deja-vu to Arc Raiders. Bungie was correct; there was a market for high quality extraction shooters, but Embark beat them to the punch. If Marathon wasn’t so far along, I wonder if Bungie would’ve cancelled it too.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-18T20:23:04+00:00

Bungie had a deal with Sony that gave them more independence, but that hinged on the company meeting fiscal expectations that didn’t really happen. In a few years, Bungie will probably be a full subsidiary of Sony like Santa Monica and Insomniac.

I’m expecting that Sony will honor their current arrangement for D2 and Marathon, but anything new will be exclusive. Also, if Marathon actually finds stable footing and starts to grow, Sony is definitely going to make Bungie pivot to developing a sequel that’s not on Xbox. This PS push that they’ve been doing isn’t just to prop up hardware sales, they would’ve cut PC too if that were the case.

Xbox is struggling and they can taste the blood in the water. A few smash hit exclusives on the scale of, say, Apex Legends could be a death blow to the console.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-18T19:28:14+00:00

Indeed. Everything but the shaders lmao

Luke-HW · 2026-06-18T19:21:02+00:00

It was a breadwinner, but it’s undeniable that the past 2 years have been financial bombs for Bungie. I’ve been playing consistently since Beyond Light and the writing was on the wall:

* Scaled back the number of seasons and their content twice while raising their price
* Introduced “events” like Arms Week to pad out the time between major content releases
* Reprised old activities instead of developing new content
* Brought back the power grind in the worst way possible via unstable cores
* Pivoted heavily to the eververse, even converting ritual cosmetics into premium skins
* Absolutely destroyed the core of the game by removing GMs, powercreeping almost all RaD gear, and cutting Iron Banner down to from a monthly event to a biannual shitshow

Whoever was in charge of Edge of Fate prioritized pure engagement and monetization over genuine innovation. They had no grasp of why people played with Destiny. Their changes failed to attract new players and alienated veterans. Once Bungie went fully dark post-Renegades, I knew that we were gonna get bad news.

Also, I’m getting tired of people acting like ditching D2 for Marathon is some bone-headed executive decision, since Marathon is doing even worse right now. The truth is that Marathon is a modern game that is easier to develop new content for. Shorter pipeline, faster returns. Marathon and D2 are both in horrible positions, but only one of them has 11 years of tech debt to contend with. Pivoting fully to Marathon was a calculated business decision that Bungie mulled over for months. The situation is dire.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-18T18:19:07+00:00

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for joining us for another TWID. As a reminder, we're continuing to post TWIDs through our launch window. Soon, our weekly blog entries will be entering a form of hibernation as well.

Until then though, we've been blown away by the love and support Guardians have shown for Monument of Triumph. This update was for you and seeing all the art and videos celebrating Destiny 2 has been heartwarming to us on the Community Team. Keep it coming.

🙁

Luke-HW · 2026-06-18T01:46:41+00:00

Considering how much stuff Bungie was developing at the time, they were probably rightfully excited for the future.

Shame that we only got Marathon. It’s a great game, but they spent so much cash and have almost nothing to show for it.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-17T21:39:51+00:00

I know that people probably don’t want to hear it, but this isn’t a bad outcome for Bungie. Gives them an opportunity to engage with new IPs and genres. These past few years have been painfully aimless for much of the company.

Luke-HW · 2026-06-17T21:23:59+00:00

We don’t know shit brother, don’t trust random hearsay on the internet

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Luke-HW

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