Article discusses the effect of rising hardware prices on the deck.
Some highlights:
How much worse has the pricing situation gotten for Valve since November? Superdata Research founder and SuperJoost newsletter author Joost van Dreunen suggested that the 512GB Steam Machine model would probably run $50 to $75 more than he expected when the Steam Machine was announced, and to expect a price “potentially $100+ above target” for the high-end 2TB model. That would mean a $599 to $629 price at the low-end and $849 to $899 for the high-end model, in his estimation.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter agreed that, even with the additional component costs, Valve would likely “try to get it out at $599 or so for the 512GB version,” A starting price higher than that would mean “abysmal” sales, he added. “I think $700 is a death sentence and $1,000 is unsellable.”
I’d recommend reading the article though, it has a lot more of value than just those quotes. It goes on to talk about how the price increases will likely hurt valve more than traditional console makers, and how these increases will affect sales.
With all the revenue from Steam, how much of a loss could they afford to go all in on with these? Do they care about profit or shifting the market from Windows to Linux (or, hell, just giving the finger to Microslop)?
The problem with a price war is Valve is “just” a multi-billion dollar company, very impressive for their size but a $100bn company like Sony and especially a $3 trillion company like Microsoft could squeeze them out of the market.
And they would have to subsidise the cost by far more than Sony/Microsoft do due to the smaller scale of production and more expensive newer contracts.
The problem is that these are computers. If they’re too cheap, companies will buy them in bulk, slap windows on them, and use them for office PCs. And if they’re sold at a loss, that then turns into a huge loss
Valve has said repeatedly they won’t subsidize it heavily because it’s more of a generic desktop than the deck was. A low subsidized price could attract buyers that wouldn’t spend money on games (ie. using for office machines)
Exactly. And we saw people doing that with the Steam Deck. Disney was using it to control their robots. Ukraine was using them to control IRL turrets. That’s just what we know of.
They would instantly catch an anti-trust case from Epic for trying to use their dominant software position to undercut hardware manufacturers and take control of both gaming hardware and software.
They were supposedly able to take a loss on the original Steam Decks, at least the lower priced 64GB models. There’s also an argument to be made that this device is primarily competing with consoles, where Steam doesn’t have a monopoly. Steam also allows games from other stores to be run on their unlocked device, it’s not their fault that Epic decided not to make an offical linux launcher.
But I’m not a lawyer, and I’m sure Epic will try to start anti-trust investigations over anything they can.
They. Did. Not.
The only thing remotely suggesting that is GabeN saying the price point was “painful” in a single interview.
Valve has stated that the Steam Decl wasn’t sold at a loss. GabeN was likely referring to the profit margins being very low, which is not the same as selling at a loss
Why the hell can’t this myth just die already?
Sweeny would sue Steam because Gabe farted and Tim didn’t get to smell it.
Do they think valve’s lawyers are not as good as Nintendo’s or something?