i mean, yea?
the reason consoles are sold under cost is because they are trying to lock you into buying games in their ecosystem.
if valve is not trying to lock you into their ecosystem… then why would they ever sell the steam machine at a loss?
I support their ethos but also can’t justify the purchase.
Same and I don’t blame them for it, like I would if Apple or Microsoft did that.
Yeah it’s just unfortunate market timing with the hardware shortages
Valve already stated from the beginning that they didn’t want to subsidize the cost like a console but they also believe that idea is infeasible which isn’t true, especially in the short term.
The whole point of the hardware is to push steam software and increase the Linux marketshare which would encourage other OEMs to offer SteamOS or Linux from factory. No one is buying this to not use it for gaming under a subsidized price because there are much better options for that purpose.
The primary buyer would still be a steam user, meaning they’d make that money back on steam purchases. They could even run a launch promo to offer reduced price with a steam wallet combo. At least give it a month or two before the final price sets in stone.
Even if they had launched at the original $750 earlier this summer with a fat price increase warning, I think the average user would have been more receptive to buying at the full price in the future. It’s the getting slapped with a $1k pricetag from the start that’s got everyone shell shocked.
Beg to disagree. I’d never pay 750 for a “pc” that performs like ryzen 3600 with an rx 6600 and has no way of being upgraded (besides replacing ram and ssd). The hardware is outdated from day 1.
For people like you and me, sure, not worth it. I know at least 3 people that are getting one because it is better than what they have, they will never upgrade even the drive let alone ram. PC I upgraded from was a ryzen 7 3800 with a rtx 4070ti super, now on a ryzen 9 9950x with an rx 9070xt. Remember this is better than what many steam users have currently, and again, these people will just use it til it dies as is. Plus this gives devs a target hardware to code for to maximize their sales and optimize their games for (there are some indie devs that do care to optimize unlike the AAA types). If the system was going to go for the original price it would almost be worth it for a living room pc, if my pc wasn’t already filling the role.
I say “upgrade” but it’s actually a repairability issue as well. If something breaks, getting a replacement part is not as easy as going to any pc store/amazon/newegg and getting what you need. You’ll have to go through steam/ifixit and it will most likely be more expensive than the equivalent pc part. You also can’t replace just the cpu, gpu or motherboard. If any of those breaks, you have to replace the whole thing.
We are not “normal” in this sense, I no longer build my own pc I go to my favourite local computer store and buy the parts and have them put it together, but I will never buy one that I did not choose the parts. Since I won’t be buying one I didn’t look at the warranty but would hope that it is at least 2 - 3 yrs (should be 5 but, yeah). Most people will simply send it off to steam and pay whatever the cost is. I was beating the hell out of my 3800 for 5 years (some VR games sent that cpu to the red line and stayed there for hours) and it is still a viable machine, owners just need to hope they don’t get a dud cause I don’t think these are off the shelf parts (cpu/gpu/mobo) so replacement will be difficult either way.
It doesn’t matter if you build it yourself or not, it matters that whoever repairs it can swap only the part that failed. The steam machine has a lot of stuff on a single board (kinda like a laptop) and that sucks, from a repairability standpoint.
Steam Doesnt even need to push hardware to increase sales… plenty of idiots like me with a 200 game backlog, and didnt even bother to stress the valve CDN by downloading the gamr even once
No one is buying this to not use it for gaming under a subsidized price because there are much better options for that purpose.
If it cost a few hundred dollars less per unit than comparable small form factor PCs, then small businesses probably would. When you only need something that works and don’t care about support contracts or having a standardized hardware fleet, anything cheap will do the job.
I guess Steam Workshop is a vivid hallucination of mine then.
Steam Workshop is more of a player-level storefront.
It’s a closed system that doesn’t allow owners on other platforms to access the mods (Valve actively shuts down anyone attempting to make it possible). Many mods are only uploaded to Workshop.
I dunno did you search for it ? https://github.com/imwaitingnow/WorkshopDL
That workarounds exist doesn’t change the fact that Valve shuts them down when it can (as noted by that repo). It doesn’t change that Valve claiming to not want to create closed ecosystems rings extremely hollow.
I see capitalism and a corpo is part of it so nothing surprising. Look like they have to pay for opensource if they judge that they have to get the opinion back. I use nexus, I never felt missing a steam mod. (I wasn’t aware of steamcmd though, that a good discovery)
They could give you steam credits with the purchase essentially the same outcome
If they don’t like closeness, maybe release Steam (both app and server) under open source license?
If they’re afraid of somebody coping them, use AGPL license.
But isn’t the SteamOS being open source make the computers bring pre-built kinda moot? Kind of like PopOS and system76?
Yea steamos is open source. It’s just arch Linux basically. Hack you can just install your own Linux distro. If you want to.
Duh - people are shitty and would abuse it.
Buying things at their retail price and using them in a way the manufacturer didn’t intend is not shitty, nor abuse.
Most of the business models that enable subsidized pricing for consumer products, on the other hand rely on artificially restricting how people can use those products, which is shitty and abusive.
Huh – what do you think I said or why I said it?
I think you said that people who do things like build a cluster of PS3s because they’re a lot of compute for the money are shitty, and that they’re abusing the fact that Sony priced them low in the hope that people who bought them would also buy games. I disagree with that position.
If you meant something else, perhaps we don’t disagree.
Duh - people are shitty and would abuse it.
One order per valid account (the same restrictions they applied to Steam Deck purchases years ago, account at least a year old and previous game purchases from that account). There can’t be large scale abuse.
If they did that, some companies would buy them for their offices. It can probably run Windows too.
If they did that, some companies would buy them for their offices. It can probably run Windows too.
Not if Valve sticked to their 1 order per valid account rule.
That didn’t stop scalpers, do you think it would stop a savvy IT personnel?
That would open that company up for a lawsuit if Valve built it into their terms. Scalpers aren’t as risk adverse as companies are.
do you think it would stop a savvy IT personnel?
You expect companies to list on their tax forms with hundreds of Steam accounts?
If it were closed and susidized, you’d have to try “opening” the hardware before installing any other operating system.
They shouldn’t subsidize it but they should at least sell it without profit.
The increase in price from 512GB to 2TB is more than what consumers would pay which shows they are profiting. It’s even cheaper to get the 512GB version and buy a 2TB SSD yourself, plus you’d still have the 512GB drive for other things.
This thing’s a luxury good… You don’t NEED it.
That’s true, but I’m also hoping for them to destroy the current console monopolies.
Valve can make a profit from their products just as you can make a profit from your labor. They aren’t a charity.
But market right now can only support so much. If it goes up much more I doubt it will sell well
Employee need to be paid to build it, ship it. You are asking them to sell at loss. But okey.
You misunderstood. No profit does not equal loss.
The employee builds a Steam Machine with either a €100 or €250 drive. All costs are the same except for that drive. However, the difference in price the end consumer pays is not a €150 difference but a €320 one.
This implies Valve takes their costs and just adds a percentage margin over it for profit. And I’m saying they shouldn’t do that. Pay what must be paid and let us pay the same.
Margin helps account for support, returns, and short term cost increases. You think anything beyond zero is unfair?
But more than 200%, though?
All of that is called cost, not profit.
Can’t be the exact cost of a drive, you have to market research to buy the best for the system. Then marketing etc. Cost are never just hardware for a corpo, but yeah in a dream world corpo should not be evil. If it is the same producer of disk I may be wrong, though one the part you pay for research of the best sdd.
What even is their profit margin after all of the software work they’ve done for it?
Valve probably wants consumers to have a machine in their home that is dedicated to running their marketplace. They don’t care if it’s hardware they sold. They want the same accessiblity to their store front that consoles have.
I mean for sure. They have a solid revenue stream in a world with an open platform they can sell on. Hence the Linux development to hedge where windows is going.
You can easily separate Proton development costs from the Steam Machine.
I have been buying Proton supported games on Steam and they know it.
What’s the profit margin on that do you think?
I have no idea, but Valve does because they have the analytics for it. They can see what games are bought, played and ran on Proton.
And it seems profitable.
It could be a loss leader or just a hedge at the moment 🤷
They could have been loosing money on it until they started selling hardware. Though they could still be losing money on hardware even. No idea rbh
I’m not seeing a 2TB M.2 SSD for less than $250. Depending on the speed they put in it, it could easily be market price. The current Amazon best seller is $350 and is over 2x the read speed of the cheaper one.
Market price for a 512GB is $100.
1050 - 100 + 250 = 1200.
You’re comparing high end 512gb prices with low end 2tb prices. I somehow doubt Valve is selling this with a no-DRAM-cache SSD. It’s only a $50 different if you compare fairly, and I doubt you’ll find anyone willing to buy the old 512gb for full price either.
Valve’s pricing is incredibly normal here. Yes the price is high, but they’re not straight up ripping you off like Apple’s RAM and SSD upgrades.
Inventory management, shipping…
