I agree it’ll require aggressive pricing, and I’m also sure they know this. I think most of the predictions of price are too high. I won’t be surprised if this is sold at a loss. Valve makes their money off the marketplace, not selling hardware. If they can move console players into their market, that’ll provide huge returns.
Consoles used to be sold at a loss. They don’t now because they don’t directly compete really. Either people get both or they choose based on brand loyalty or peer pressure. I hope Valve comes in and has a price so low you can’t ignore it if you’re looking to buy a console. The Xbox Series S is $400. I’m expecting it’ll be the same at most, potentially even lower if it’s sold at a loss. If it’s $300 then they’ll shake up the market without a doubt.
Couldn’t a problem be that If they set the price too low, companies buy them in bulk and using them as cheap, performant and sexy looking pcs? Consoles are very restricted in terms of os and other software, forcing people to use them in a way that almost guarantees you earning back your loss in the long term.
Steam machines are the opposite, you can install virtually anything on it and use them for whatever.
If they sold it a $400 they’d be at a loss, at $300 they would crash the desktop market. People would by it for general desktop use. Similar how so many PS2 were bought just because it was the cheapest DVD player and didn’t buy games.
Hell, there was a supercomputers built with PS3 clusters. Maybe that explains why the Steam Machine only has a 1Gbps nic…
I think the estimates are that $400 is reasonable for the hardware. It’s not particularly great, and makes some sacrifices for cost saving, which is fine. Like 8GB VRAM is pretty low for modern hardware. It’s enough for a lot of games, but modern AAA games it’s probably a little low.
I agree, $300 will be good enough people will get it for a computer. That’s what selling at a cost does. These manufacturers already get a bulk discount that buying as a consumer doesn’t, and selling it at cost makes it even lower. It’ll definitely be a good value for low performance computing, and I’d wager that’s part of the goal too. It isn’t just a console. It’s also an alternative to your computer and, importantly for Valve, gets you out of the MS ecosystem.
I agree it’ll require aggressive pricing, and I’m also sure they know this. I think most of the predictions of price are too high. I won’t be surprised if this is sold at a loss. Valve makes their money off the marketplace, not selling hardware. If they can move console players into their market, that’ll provide huge returns.
Consoles used to be sold at a loss. They don’t now because they don’t directly compete really. Either people get both or they choose based on brand loyalty or peer pressure. I hope Valve comes in and has a price so low you can’t ignore it if you’re looking to buy a console. The Xbox Series S is $400. I’m expecting it’ll be the same at most, potentially even lower if it’s sold at a loss. If it’s $300 then they’ll shake up the market without a doubt.
Couldn’t a problem be that If they set the price too low, companies buy them in bulk and using them as cheap, performant and sexy looking pcs? Consoles are very restricted in terms of os and other software, forcing people to use them in a way that almost guarantees you earning back your loss in the long term.
Steam machines are the opposite, you can install virtually anything on it and use them for whatever.
If they sold it a $400 they’d be at a loss, at $300 they would crash the desktop market. People would by it for general desktop use. Similar how so many PS2 were bought just because it was the cheapest DVD player and didn’t buy games.
Hell, there was a supercomputers built with PS3 clusters. Maybe that explains why the Steam Machine only has a 1Gbps nic…
I think the estimates are that $400 is reasonable for the hardware. It’s not particularly great, and makes some sacrifices for cost saving, which is fine. Like 8GB VRAM is pretty low for modern hardware. It’s enough for a lot of games, but modern AAA games it’s probably a little low.
I agree, $300 will be good enough people will get it for a computer. That’s what selling at a cost does. These manufacturers already get a bulk discount that buying as a consumer doesn’t, and selling it at cost makes it even lower. It’ll definitely be a good value for low performance computing, and I’d wager that’s part of the goal too. It isn’t just a console. It’s also an alternative to your computer and, importantly for Valve, gets you out of the MS ecosystem.