Steam Machine Companion Cube
1
The “luxurious and expensive” Companion Cube will feature rear and bottom ventilation, front panels for accessing your little Linux gaming PC’s ports, and even a slot cutout to let the Steam Machine’s glowing LED strip shine through the front.
The whole front panel is magnetic and, therefore, easily removable for cleaning the Steam Machine’s front grill. The back panel is also removable for accessing the ports back there, too.
Here’s a bunch of images for you to ogle:
The Companion Cube is available in two tiers. There’s a $129.99 “Companion Cube” version that comes in a special edition box that includes a fold-out “test chamber,” a “cake-themed suede cloth,” a red button base stand, and an orange and blue Portal-themed Steam Controller skin.
As you may already know, the Companion Cube is from the Valve’s critically acclaimed person puzzle platforming game Portal.
For $99.95, you can buy the “Poverty Cube” version.
It’s the Companion Cube in a brown cardboard box. That’s it.
The Companion Cube edition ships “Late July,” while the Poverty Cube version “ships eventually.”
While the Steam Machine was initially supposed to come out at the beginning of 2026, the AI-fueled RAM crisis caused Valve to hit the brakes back in February.
Now, whenever Valve’s Steam Machine does eventually comes out, so you can actually use that Portal-themed case, it’s likely that it’s going to have a higher price than we initially thought it would.
After all, it wasn’t long ago that the Steam Deck had a steep price increase of its own, and that handheld is significantly weaker than Valve’s promised mini gaming PC.
Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at places like Gizmodo, Tom’s Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge.
This story contains contributions from Robert Anderson and Jackie Thomas.


