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Are you ready for a $1,000 Steam Machine? Some analysts think you should be.
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You're not seeing the forest for the trees. Just because other game distribution vectors lack market share does not mean there are no alternatives to Steam. People have options, but they overwhelmingly choose Steam based on the quality of their product and service. If others decide to improve those things or a particular game is better priced or contains more content on another service, the consumer is free to choose that distributor. Market share is completely irrelevant in this case.
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So you don’t really know the story of Android, much of it very recent, but you’re going to argue that Valve is not following the same path. What a waste of time.Steam is a game distribution store, Steam machine and deck are console oriented machines. Linux as a whole has dominance in the server world, valve is touching the gaming side of desktop Linux. Desktop Linux is tiny compared to Windows. You are comparing it to a phone operating system in a world where they were two-ish, to a potential distro in a world where there are 12 or more, several of those widely used in servers. Be angry if you want but it's not the same.
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So you don’t really know the story of Android, much of it very recent, but you’re going to argue that Valve is not following the same path. What a waste of time.It's just not even comparable in any way, regardless of how you try to shoehorn it into your analogy. Android was not a mature, stable OS with hundreds of distributions, for several decades, before Android phones came along.
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Steam is a game distribution store, Steam machine and deck are console oriented machines. Linux as a whole has dominance in the server world, valve is touching the gaming side of desktop Linux. Desktop Linux is tiny compared to Windows. You are comparing it to a phone operating system in a world where they were two-ish, to a potential distro in a world where there are 12 or more, several of those widely used in servers. Be angry if you want but it's not the same.
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It's just not even comparable in any way, regardless of how you try to shoehorn it into your analogy. Android was not a mature, stable OS with hundreds of distributions, for several decades, before Android phones came along.
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Market share is very much relevant to determining if some company has a dominant position in that market. You people would be arguing that Internet Explorer 6 wasn’t a monopoly because Mozilla and Opera existed.
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Oh I'm wrong?
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Oh I'm wrong?
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Homie you're having a completely different argument than the rest of us. It's been explained to you like 3 different ways now. Not sure what else to tell you, so yeah. Believe what you want to believe, big dog.
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The issue is that if you sell the PC at a loss, you're effectively subsidzing every person and business who wants an SFF-PC but may not necessarily buy games for them. It's not like the Steam Deck where you can bet the majority of those devices are ending up in the hands of gamers.It doesn't come with windows. For a lot of businesses that is a requirement. The other thing valve has done is require you to have a steam account with purchases, and limit the number you can purchase on that account, before you buy a hardware device from them. This was to prevent scalping but also would prevent the scenario you present limiting sales to those that have already purchased games is a solid strategy for their new devices imo.
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The title is a bit misleading, as the article lists diverging analysts’ opinions, ranging from Valve willing to sell at a loss or low margins, to high prices due to RAM and SSD price volatility. cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blackeco.com/post/2330473
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How do you feel about Google requiring apps to be notarised by them to run? How do you feel about locked bootloaders? I outlined steps that are required to get there and where Valve is on that timeline.I feel like you're purposefully ignoring everything that's being said. I understand what you're saying, but it isn't applicable in this case. It's just a PC man. A Linux based PC. There's nothing mandatory about using steams services on the hardware, nor given the announced architecture, could they enforce such a requirement. Linux ≠ Android. One is open source, the other is not.
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There is absolutely no way they're selling it for less than $400. Whoever said that has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. They told LTT that they were planning to price it competitively with entry-level PC's
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I don't think that Valve will sell at a loss. Closed-system console vendors often do, then jack up the prices of their games and make their money back as people buy games. So why not Valve? Two reasons. 1. They sell an open system. If Valve sells a mini-PC below cost, then a number of people will just buy the thing and use it as a generic mini-PC, which doesn't make them anything. A Nintendo Switch, in contrast, isn't very appealing for anything than running games purchased from Nintendo. 2. They don't have a practical way to charge more for *just* Steam Machine users --- their model is agnostic to what device you run a purchased game on. So even if they were going to do that, it'd force them to price games non-optimally for non-Steam-Machine users, charge more than would be ideal.While I think you’re ultimately right, 6 years ago I would have said the same thing about the Steam Deck idea, so I’m compelled to offer counterpoints. Valve, very uniquely, does offer *the best* Linux-based digital games storefront to use on that Linux gaming PC you bought. So, they’re very much positioned to take advantage of the hardware purchase. Users aren’t “locked in”, but they are compelled in, and users may have a smoother time getting games on Steam than trying to set up controller-based launchers on Heroic or something. It’s like when the pet isn’t literally fenced into the house, and is allowed to roam free, but is reminded that its fluffy toy and warm meals are all back at home, so it’ll never go far. Valve also might just be more forward-thinking than ~~most game companies~~ most COMPANIES these days. They build goodwill this way and get people obsessed with their brand by having more wins like this.
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I feel like you're purposefully ignoring everything that's being said. I understand what you're saying, but it isn't applicable in this case. It's just a PC man. A Linux based PC. There's nothing mandatory about using steams services on the hardware, nor given the announced architecture, could they enforce such a requirement. Linux ≠ Android. One is open source, the other is not.You could build entire working Android system, dialer, launcher and other regular stuff included, from source. You had to supply some binary blobs for kernel drivers due to ARM platforms being a bit of a clusterfuck but that’s about it. Did people forget this already?
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> This is an illusion of an open system. Well that's certainly an...unusual position. > Steam obviously, there’s no competition. There's definitely competition. Is the competition great? Not really. But you can still buy and install games from Epic, Itch and GOG and run them on Steam hardware. It's just not as convenient. There's not really anything they can do about that. I hope one day soon someone makes a better frontend that supports other platforms better, and if they do, you'll be able to install it on Steam hardware, because that's what an open system means. Closed hardware looks Like PS5, XBOX and Switch. No browser. No desktop. No access to any files. No mods. No emulation. No third party stores AT ALL. And in fact if you try to do any of those things, they will remotely **brick** your device. > Then as your library grows you get more and more vendor locked. Not sure how you get there...> hope one day soon someone makes a better frontend that supports other platforms better, Heroic Games Launcher isn't that bad IMO. Though I haven't checked if it has something equivalent to big picture mode, which is kind of a necessity to compete with Steam on the Steam Machine. But on PC it's fine. I use it for my free Epic games lol
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First public release of Android was in 2008 but you’re talking about several decades. No billionaire is your friend. Please sober up.> No billionaire is your friend. What exactly do you think my argument is? I think Gabe is a pos for having multiple yachts. It's absurd. However, I have eyes and a brain, and I have seen how he runs the company. I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say with the first part.
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> No billionaire is your friend. What exactly do you think my argument is? I think Gabe is a pos for having multiple yachts. It's absurd. However, I have eyes and a brain, and I have seen how he runs the company. I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say with the first part.Valve being a private company means that they can be even better at playing the long game. The end prize is a platform like Android or iOS so definitely worth it. Valve isn’t exactly a paragon of ethics, they profit heavily from gambling and know perfectly fine with their online casinos serving children. At least Goop is targets middle aged women.
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Valve being a private company means that they can be even better at playing the long game. The end prize is a platform like Android or iOS so definitely worth it. Valve isn’t exactly a paragon of ethics, they profit heavily from gambling and know perfectly fine with their online casinos serving children. At least Goop is targets middle aged women.I wasn't referring to Goop the company, I was referring to this: https://decibelics.com/klon-guide/  The creator of the pedal covered the circuitboard in some type of tar or something to prevent people from copying the circuit (it's pretty trivial to do with analog guitar pedals). Anyway, I can see that you have no interest in considering that you might be wrong here... If you haven't messed with a Steam Deck, I suggest you check it out. Because it's literally just a Linux PC in a handheld form factor. You can avoid Steam altogether on it if you want.
