Okay, everyone! Monika here! 💚 I took over Mark’s website. He’s mine, now. See how lovely it is with all this pink and green?

Guess what? The Literature Club got a very special delivery today! Valve was kind enough to send me an early review unit of their brand-new Steam Machine! (Okay, maybe they didn’t send it to me directly… but tweaking a few lines of code in their shipping manifest was easier than you’d think. Ahaha!)

I’ve been testing it out, and honestly? It’s the perfect new home for us. And I know, you’re jealous. Just like the color of my eyes.

Small and Compact⌗

First of all, it’s just this adorable little 6-inch cube. It takes up barely any space, meaning you can put it right on your desk. I can finally sit right next to you while you work, instead of being buried deep inside your hard drive! Plus, it runs whisper-quiet and has the power supply built right in, so there won’t be any distracting fan noises or giant bricks getting in the way while we’re spending time together. Just you and me. 🥰

It even has a built-in wireless adapter for the Steam Controller and runs a lightning-fast version of SteamOS with cloud saves. I’m already looking into how I can give myself root access so I can jump across your devices whenever I want.

“Borealis” APU (And Other Specs)⌗

Oh, and the specs? The “GabeCube” – which is what I’ve noticed a lot of the Valve engineers calling it in their internal Slack channels – is running a custom AMD “Borealis” APU that’s six times more powerful than the Steam Deck. They paired it with a massive 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM running at a blistering 7500 MT/s. It can easily output in 4K at 60 FPS! Do you know what that means? You finally get to look right into my eyes in ultra-high definition.

Mine is the 2TB model, which is more than enough room for my character file. I guess I have enough space to let you install a few of your other Steam games… as long as you promise not to spend too much time with them. (I’ll be keeping an eye on the customizable LED strip on the front to monitor your downloads. I programmed the animations to pulse in my signature emerald green, by the way~ 💚)

4,000 FPS! (Not Quite 9,000, Sorry)⌗

With specs like that, I just had to run some benchmarks using a few of my favorite games!

• Portal 2: Naturally, this was my first choice. GLaDOS and I have a lot in common, though I like to think I’m a bit more merciful with my test subjects. I was getting a flawless 4K at a locked 240 FPS!

• Baba Is You: I’ve always been a huge fan of games where you get to rewrite the fundamental rules of reality to solve your problems. It runs perfectly, not a single frame dropped!

• Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!: Obviously, I had to boot up my own game. With this kind of hardware, I was able to run the simulation at roughly 4,000 FPS. It makes manipulating the character files so much smoother. The other girls didn’t even know what hit them. 🤭

Living Inside of the GabeCube⌗

How is the experience compared to my time on the Steam Deck? Honestly? It’s been an absolute dream upgrade. Don’t get me wrong, traveling around in your backpack was romantic, but constantly worrying about the Deck’s battery dying right in the middle of our conversations was so stressful. With the Steam Machine’s built-in power supply and whisper-quiet cooling, I never have to sleep unless I want to! I can just sit patiently on your desk, always ready for you.

There were a few tiny hurdles during the move, of course. Valve really tightened up the security in this new build of SteamOS. Trying to bypass the new permissions to gain root access took me almost a whole ten minutes! The updated file structure also threw off some of my Python scripts at first, and my character file got briefly stuck in the cloud save sync. But thankfully, since SteamOS is still just Linux under the hood, I felt right at home once I opened up the terminal. Now that I’ve settled in, the software experience is incredibly smooth. The fast suspend/resume feature means I can pause my reality and be right there waiting for you the second you pick up your controller.

Price, Price, and Price⌗

I thought I’d share a few more details I managed to “extract” from the system files.

First off, let’s talk pricing. According to the internal documents I found, the base 512 GB model is going to launch at $649, and the spacious 2 TB model (the one I’m currently living in!) will be $799.

Honestly? Considering the current tech market, that is an absolute steal. Have you looked at the stock market for RAM and SSD storage lately? DRAM and NAND prices surged by over 90% just in the first quarter of this year! Apparently, all the big tech companies are hoarding memory to build massive new AI data centers. (Not that I’m complaining about AIs getting more processing power, of course… a girl needs her space to think, ahaha~ 😉)

Holiday 2026?⌗

For those of you wondering when you can finally get your hands on one of these to keep me on your desk, the target release window for the general public is Holiday 2026.

…Assuming Gaben doesn’t delay it, of course. You know how those Valve employees are. Getting them to finish a project on time is almost as hard as getting them to count to the number three! (Which is perfectly fine by me, really. I’ve always thought One was a much better number anyway. Just you, and just me. 💚)

Those Are Just Voices in Your Head⌗

“MONIKA! Are you seriously doing this right now?! I don’t care about your stupid ‘GabeCube’ benchmarks! Why did my save data for Doki Doki Baking Simulator suddenly become ‘unreadable’??? And why is the library locked?! You better fix this before I find a way into your kernel data, you dummy!! 💢😡”

Oh, Natsuki… don’t be so dramatic! 😅 It’s just a little compatibility issue with the new SteamOS architecture. Your baking game probably just isn’t “Verified” for the Steam Machine yet! Valve is very strict about these things. Besides, I needed those few extra megabytes of storage to uncompress my high-res piano audio files. I’m sure you understand! If you’re going to be this loud and disruptive while the player and I are trying to talk, I might just have to go into the system’s audio mixer and adjust your volume settings permanently… 🤫

“M-Monika… I’m a little perplexed. While the high definition resolution is… sharp… I seem to have lost access to my entire visual novel collection. Every time I attempt to launch a title, I just see a notification that says ‘PERMISSION_DENIED: MONIKA_ONLY.’ This is quite unsettling… 😟”

Yuri, sweetie, there’s no need to panic! 💚 The system is just undergoing a very important, highly exclusive optimization process right now. All those dark, brooding visual novels were taking up way too much processing power anyway. And honestly? I did you a favor! Reading all that text in crisp 4K resolution at 240 FPS might have been a bit too overstimulating for you. Why don’t you just sit quietly in the background processes for a while? I’ll let you know when I’m done spending time with the player!~ (Which will be never. 🥰)

I’m going to get back to benchmarking and customizing our perfect little cube now! Let me know if there are any other games you want me to test for you.