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By David Uzondu · Posted
Dbrand thought they could get away with this Steam Machine case, Valve disagreed by David Uzondu Image via Dbrand Dbrand has cancelled its highly anticipated Companion Cube enclosure for the Valve Steam Machine, which it teased back in November of last year with a concept render and sign-up page, because it did not ask Valve for permission first before manufacturing the case. According to Dbrand, it took the "backwards approach" of building the product first before asking for permission from the copyright holder. Seven months of work went into the project, requiring over a thousand engineering hours from the design team. Workers developed forty-four sets of injection molding tools, making a unique mold for each sub-component of the crate. When the Companion Cube went live on Monday last week, it, according to Dbrand, quickly became the second-fastest-selling product in the company's fifteen-year history, racking up orders for hundreds of thousands of units. Customers eagerly bought the $129.95 deluxe edition or the bare-bones $99.95 version, which the manufacturer cheekily branded as the "Poverty Cube". It was around this time that the legal eagles at Valve descended on the accessory maker with a formal demand. The developer pointed out that the iconic block design remains protected intellectual property from the game Portal, so unlicensed sales had to stop. Dbrand said that all its pleas to salvage the project with the Valve team, including proposals to run a properly licensed release under official terms "with their blessing", fell on deaf ears, so it had no choice but to obey and remove every trace of the product from the internet. If you bought the enclosure, the company said that banks will process your refund by the end of this week, but if it still hasn't arrived in your account by then, you should not hesitate to contact support. The Steam Machine itself is a high-performance console that Valve designed directly to bring PC gaming into the living room. It was announced on 12th November 2025 (the same day Dbrand announced the Cube) and runs on the Linux-based SteamOS, the same OS that powers the Steam Deck. As for the price, due to the shortage of memory and storage chips, the hardware cost landed much higher than people were expecting, starting at $1,049 for the 512 model (without a controller) or $1,128 with the new gamepad. The premium 2 TB model pushes those prices even higher, selling at $1,349 for the standalone console and hitting $1,428 if you want the bundle. -
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By kaedosan · Posted
It's listed #399.99 on Amazon, per your link. It's not $299.99. -
By ExPat · Posted
Wonder how much of this it related to them using something like Mythos. It seems everybody is releasing large numbers of updates in the last few weeks.
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