Comment on Microsoft claims: Steam Deck Did Not Need Call Of Duty To Succeed
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 year agoOh yeah it did, they weren’t going for mass adoption, but there was a niche market that needed it and they filled it. Preorders took a year to produce. Being successful and profitable didn’t use to mean literally every person needed to own one
MJBrune@beehaw.org 1 year ago
Still, I’m working off the data we have. I wouldn’t make the assumption it’s been successful or unsuccessful. We can look at known failed steam hardware such as the steam link, controller, and the steam machine partnership. All 3 served the same niche and weren’t successful. That said, we don’t know what success looks like. Was the Vive successful? Was the index? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Controller#Release_an… shows that there were a million units sold and while differently priced than the steam deck, still similar in sales to the steam deck.
Also, Valve is already confirmed a Steam Deck 2 is on the way and shortly: pcworld.com/…/valve-says-the-steam-deck-2-is-year… so it’s not that the original Steam Deck is a “failure” as it is an experimental piece of hardware created to make a jumping off point for Valve into the console market. That said, if I truly had to guess, and this is just a guess, Valve probably didn’t make their money back on the console. It’s an investment into the console market and success is determined by different things. Valve would have likely seen the Steam Deck as a success as long as it didn’t have major hardware failures and did what was asked of it. Which it does. It’s absolutely what you ask for when you ask for a handheld PC. So, that’s why Valve might not need CoD on the Steam Deck. It’s not trying to outsell a Switch or XBox. It’s trying to gain a foothold and not be a disaster. It successfully did that.
Lastly, It’s important that hardware is typically sold not for profit but to get people in the door to the console ecosystem. Buying games is where it’s at and Valve already has a major step up on that. Steam didn’t need CoD but Valve needed CoD (and other games) to get to this point where they can fail or not even seek profitability on hardware to expand their store audience.
Hyacathusarullistad@kbin.social 1 year ago
The article you've linked seems to say the opposite of what you're suggesting — that a second iteration of the Steam Deck is coming soon. That's not the impression I get from the linked article at all.
MJBrune@beehaw.org 1 year ago
When I said the Steam Deck is coming soon, I mean soon enough that it’s “years” away. Not soon as in coming in the next 2 years but soon enough that they are already iterating on it and confirming that they are making a new one.
But a lot of them are installed with Windows and the biggest competitor is the Rog Ally which straight up advertises Microsoft GamePass on their site. Those competitors are as likely to use Steam as they are to use Epic, GOG, Microsoft, or Itch. The Steam Deck uniquely is made by a marketplace company. You could possibly get some storefronts on the Deck but realistically it’s a Steam device and most people will use it for Steam games.
With less than 2 million users using it and a lot of that 2% already being in the Steam marketplace, it’s hard to say if they’ve seen the increase in-store purchases as they hoped.