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
Comment on Why $700 could be a "death sentence" for the Steam Machine
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 day ago
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)?
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
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 on games (ie. using for office machines)
Ulrich@feddit.org 23 hours ago
Exactly. And we saw people doing that with the Stream Deck. Disney was using it to control their robots. Ukraine was using them to control IRL turrets.
DScratch@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
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.
Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
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.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
They were supposedly able to take a loss on the original Steam Decks, at least the lower priced 64GB models.
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
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 day ago
Sweeny would sue Steam becsuse Gabe farted and Tim didn’t get to smell it.
FishFace@piefed.social 1 day ago
Do they think valve’s lawyers are not as good as Nintendo’s or something?
doublah@sopuli.xyz 19 hours ago
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.
x00z@lemmy.world 34 minutes ago
Valve stated that they want this to be self sustaining by selling it at a normal profit.
Maybe with the RAM prices they’ll turn this back and just sell without a loss and focus on profits from Steam itself.
Right now I don’t think even they have the answer yet. They don’t have the volume to get the RAM prices down or stable so they’re getting buttfucked as much as the rest of us.