Prices for consoles went up, too
Comment on Steam Deck 2 getting closer but hardware still not quite there yet
Midnitte@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
At this point they arent just waiting on the chip, they’re waiting on cost.
Releasing a more expensive system when they just raised the price of the original would be insane.
People do remember consoles normally decrease in price as they age, yes?
almost1337@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Hardware usually first reduces in price because manufacturers start with a need to quickly recover the large R&D costs using a high profit margin, and at some point they break even. Game consoles are kinda special, as they are often sold at a loss from the start because they expect sales in games to eventuslly cover it all, so their pricing usually slowly trends down in hopes it attracts new owners that will then buy a bunch of games.
Valve doesn’t do that with the Deck (they want the hardware division to be entirely self-sufficient), but they also set the price to be really low right from the start to be competitive, so they had to increase the price to match current manufacturing costs or each Deck would lose the hardware division money.