I'm not sure this makes sense on Valve's end.
It makes sense for console manufacturers to sell at a loss, on the assumption that you'll make the money back in other ways.
It makes sense for Amazon to sell the Kindle at a loss, since *enough* buyers will keep themselves locked in Amazon's ecosystem, and the steepest discounts are reserved for people who are in the ecosystem through a prime subscription anyway.
The steam deck is a windows-capable PC. How many buyers are going to keep themselves locked into Steam OS? How much additional software do they expect to sell thanks to the deck? Just how much loss is Valve eating on each unit?
From my
earlier link:
Steam Deck - $399/529/649
GPD Win Max 2021 - $1250/1750
ONEXPLAYER - $1059/1199
AYA Neo - $925/1015
GPD Win 3 - $1040/1215
One GX1 Pro - $1399
At the price points Valve has set for the Steam Deck, how are third party manufacturers supposed to produce "steam decks" of their own?
The price point seems to be geared toward creating a large user base, after which Valve will leave hardware production to third parties, as was the plan for steam machines, but I just don't see how, or why, third parties would have an incentive to do so.
It's way too expensive to replace the switch and way too cheap to sell without a cut of software sales.
I bought my queue spot
assuming that the deck will be a "failure."