Shuhei Yoshida, formerly the president of SIE Worldwide Studios for Sony and head of PlayStation Indies, has offered his initial thoughts on Valve's Steam Machine following a few hours of use. The industry veteran, who retired last year, expressed a lukewarm reception to the device, particularly regarding its performance and price.
Yoshida described the 3D performance as "meh" and noted that the system defaults to 1080p, a resolution that brought back memories of the PlayStation 4 era. He also reported that some games exhibit "looooooong" boot times, questioning the system's activity during these periods. These observations echo findings from PC Gamer's own review, which indicated that the Steam Machine's performance lagged behind similarly priced mini PCs, with its RDNA 3 graphics hardware struggling, especially with ray tracing.
Adding to his critiques, Yoshida found the Steam Machine's price to be "very unfriendly," stating it is difficult to recommend unless for research purposes. He also commented on the new Steam Controller, finding its touchpads overly "touchy" and hard to use, while the analog sticks felt looser than he would prefer.
Despite these criticisms, Yoshida found some aspects of the Steam Machine commendable. He praised the SteamOS user interface as easy to navigate and appreciated the ability to power on the system using only the Steam Controller. The changeable face plates and boot-up videos were also noted positively. Ultimately, he stated that its capability to play Steam games on a living room TV was "a reason enough to keep it."
Yoshida emphasized that his assessment comes after only a few hours with the device. He did, however, conclude his initial impressions by highlighting the "small form factor and quietness" as "super good" features of the Steam Machine.