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
Exactly, but I don’t see anything keeping them from selling the Frame at a loss or tight margin. What else are you going to use that with but Steam games?
Even the Steam Controller is useless without Steam Input, but I’d argue it won’t necessarily sell more games. Maybe they could include it with the Steam Machine for “free” to bump the price of the machine up enough to not make sense for a company, but still sell it at a tight margin to sell more games.
Why would they sell any hardware at a loss at all? Console manufacturers do it to lock people into their ecosystem and sell them games at a premium, Valve doesn’t need that, people are already overwhelmingly favoring their store.
The same reason people go into debt for a burrito. It’s easier for people to justify a smaller cost now, and valve will make than money back later with extra games sold, especially in the case of the Frame.
As someone who loves VR gaming, isn’t that a lot of faith for the unpredictable at best market that is VR games?