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’ve also read speculation that selling it at a loss could contribute to antitrust lawsuits against them. Basically if they sell gaming PCs below cost, and the gaming PCs incentivize Steam use over other platforms, there would be an argument that Valve was using their 30% sales cut to sell hardware others can’t compete against, to further cement their monopoly. This would be partially countered by the open nature of the device, but not fully since it would still “steer” common users towards steam over other platforms.
This isn’t an issue for console makers because there are multiple competing consoles with valid market share.
Sony sold the PS3 at a pretty significant loss and had an “OtherOS” feature that allowed people to install Linux on it.
Between that and ots cell architecture, it turned out to be a super affordable way to build supercomputers. Sony eventually disabled the OtherOS feature to combat people buying them en masse and costing Sony their lunch, and they got a LOT of flack for it.
Valve is doing the opposite. They’re keeping the openness, but charging enough money it’s not financially viable to buy a bunch of Steam Machines to build cheap AI clusters.
Sony eventually disabled the OtherOS feature to combat people buying them en masse and costing Sony their lunch, and they got a LOT of flack for it.
And also tried to get Youtube to reveal the identities of everyone who watched George Hotz’s PS3 hacking video so they could attempt to individually sue them. Don’t forget that part.
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.
