No, MSI or ASUS or really any other hardware company (that primarily sells hardware) makes money from selling hardware. Valve main source of income is their steam service, not the deck. For any deck they sold, they could make a loss but they gain revenue by a first time gamer. Much like how console can be sold at a loss but making the profit from the game they sold. The primary difference between traditional console and steam deck is that any hardware competitor to steam deck is still a win for valve since they also mostly profit from sales on their steam service. Thus my point, any hardware company is not valve primary rival since if a consumer chose steam deck, valve wins, but if they chose the competitor, valve wins too. Epic, Ubisoft, and EA or whoever else that tries to provide the same service like valve should be their primary competitor.
Comment on Valve has little to worry about as new Steam Deck rival arrives
averyminya@beehaw.org 4 months agoTo be honest, any hardware company can’t really compete with valve toe to toe since valves can cut cost and sell at a loss.
So far most of the companies that have tried it could have taken the same approach. They just haven’t, like MSI and ASUS. I’m guessing because they know they don’t need to, since there’s a demographic of people who will buy “the best” as long as it’s marketed at them. Why sell it at a loss when someone will pay over full price for something like the ROG Ally.
bitfucker@programming.dev 4 months ago
lengau@midwest.social 4 months ago
Yeah, the market for those handhelds seems to be people who either specifically want Windows or want better specs (or think they want that), but don’t mind the trade-offs.