I personally expect that they will want to cover hardware cost, while being willing to subsidize development cost with the steam store.
So I think the low storage models will make a slight loss for valve in the beginning, while the higher storage models will get that back to even overall for valve.
The most disappointing part is the rumoured pricing of “aiming to be under $1000”.
$1 is “under $1000”.
at $999, even for the 1TB model, this is a really tough sell.
I’m not sure I’d get one, even though I love what they’re doing, and want to support it.
I really hope, that the “under $1000” is a misunderstanding from the “cheaper than index”, which currently sells for 539€ (~$625, incl tax) without controller and base stations.
That would be a great price.
I can just hope it’s nearer to that than the $1000.
I think all of these are nice, if priced correctly
Steam Frame needs to compete with quest, so prices over $800 are a really tough sell.
Steam Machine needs to compete with consoles, PS5 (non-pro) and Series S, so prices over ~$700 will become really tough.
Prices start becoming really good, if they manage to come it at ~$600 for Steam Frame and ~$500 for Steam Machine.
But with current hardware prices, Valve being valve and no-one can know if they want to make money on the hardware, or if they are willing to sell at cost, or if they are willing to subsidize, who knows where we will land.
US military industrial complex is reading this as “Oh damn, we need to build much more of these then”
And, with Alzheimers, he might have gone through grief and panic multiple times.
surprisingly not most of the time I checked.
Laptop/Mobile x86 seemed rather competetive to Laptop/Mobile ARM in performance/Watt
Unless they change CPU architectures.
well. there’s already winlator (basically box86 / wine-wrapper for android).
Not as polished and far as Proton is, but the bones are there.
A CPU architecture change wouldn’t be a deathblow.
Also the price scales wayyyy better. Steam Deck starts at 313,65€ now.
if you have less money, buy that, get an sd card, and if you enjoy it put an ssd in later.
I have to say this is extremely encouraging.
I didn’t think that the steamdeck would have the raw performance. But it seems to me that it does, but the emulator is lacking optimization (understandably for such an early stage)
My experience with Cyberpunk was that the Steam Deck preset was a good starting point, but wasn’t actually an ideal way to play the game.
that is also propably subjective and may even depend on the deck you have, and in which areas the silicon lottery was good or bad to you
Depends, index alone (no trackers, no controllers) is Quite a bit cheaper