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
Consoles are just small computers lol
Don’t know what else to tell you. Person I replied to said console customers aren’t interested in consoles. That’s silly
No, it isn’t, in practice. Xbox and PS5 have more in common with my iPhone than my desktop PC or NAS when it comes to being able to do what I want with it.
It will be interesting to see how proprietary the Steam machine is. That’s how I’d end up classifying it as console or miniPC.
Having more features and flexibility than other consoles doesn’t take away its main function and selling point.
The steam deck is also a small PC, just like the consoles and was priced perfectly for success
None of those consoles would directly boot into desktop Linux with just a few button presses.
They actually do, they’re just locked down from factory
https://github.com/SleepTheGod/PS5_Linux_Boot/blob/main/README.md
Remember that PS2 natively supported this and modern consoles like the Switch can boot directly into desktop Linux.
I said “with a few button presses,” not “after hacking it and booting from external media.”
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
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.
So user friendly Linux running on it makes it not a console? For a while PS3 was just a couple button presses to get a full Linux distro booted on it. I don’t think anyone would argue PS3 wasn’t a console.
As far as how most people use their computers there is little difference.
I don’t use my PS5 to surf the web. I know you can use it to watch movies and stuff, but I don’t use it for that either.
At best, it depends on what kind of user most of the console owners are.
It’s odd that the PS4 has a web browser, and that the PS5 has mouse and keyboard support, but neither has both