Can everyone please stop claiming and speculating that Valve’s new hardware will be loss leaders? If you watch LTT and Gamers Nexus’s first videos on the announcement, they actually spoke with Valve’s engineers. And the Valve representatives already said that the new hardware WILL NOT BE LOSS LEADERS.

There isn’t even evidence that the Steam Deck was a loss leader. All GabeN said was that the lowest cost launch model was priced “painfully”, which doesn’t necessarily mean it was sold at a loss, it could easily have been sold at a very tight margin.

And no, low margins does not meet the definition of a loss leader. A loss leader is a product sold below cost, in that every unit sold actually costs the seller money.

I get the desire to speculate on new hardware. It’s fun and it helps pass the time until we hear more info from Valve. But there’s limits to what is reasonable. Valve has already stated that the new hardware won’t be loss leaders, so hoping and/or claiming they are isn’t reasonable.

Sorry for the rant, but all of the comments that seem to have only skimmed headlines are quickly getting to me

  • ag10n@lemmy.worldEnglish
    103·
    11 days ago

    The steam deck is also a small PC, just like the consoles and was priced perfectly for success

    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      93·
      10 days ago

      None of those consoles would directly boot into desktop Linux with just a few button presses.

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
          52·
          10 days ago

          I said “with a few button presses,” not “after hacking it and booting from external media.”

          • ag10n@lemmy.worldEnglish
            33·
            10 days ago

            So what you’re saying because Valve supports it out of the box is the limiting factor between a console and pc

            The hardware supports it; it could be a PC if you want.

            You skipped over the PS2 and how it was a console and marketed with Linux support directly from Sony

            Let alone Yellow Dog Linux on the PS3

            https://youtu.be/lSP9b4Qcu4M

            • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
              41·
              10 days ago

              A clever enough person can get a useable general-purpose OS running on just about any hardware. The entire point is that it’s user-friendly out of the box.