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.
That would be a problem.
See point a. Everyone is so capitalism-brained they assume every company’s goal is to sell the maximum amount of product and anything less is abject failure. (Ok that’s a bit of hyperbole.) But Valve is a weird company and we just don’t know what their criteria for success is.
If they’re aiming for a market the same size or larger than the Steam Deck, they will probably struggle at higher price points. But if they’re look at 1-2M units? That could be doable with people like me. That’s a relatively small portion of the gaming market, but might be enough for them to be worth it.