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
So what exactly does that change? Valve already decided the price and that is what you will have to pay. Who cares what anyone ever predicted?
There are people online who are wrong. I can’t just ignore that, they must be told why they are wrong.
Seriously though it’s a good idea to correct people when they make stupid baseless claims because other people won’t necessarily have the technical understanding to judge whether their claims are based on reality or not.
Many of the people who are doing this are YouTube or Instagram personalities with lots of children following them, I like this product and want it to succeed, and I don’t want children to lose interest in the idea because their favourite idiot instagrammer reckons it’ll cost an absurd amount of money.
I’m utterly confused about why you are upset that people are doing that. There’s absolutely no need for you to engage in it.
Valve will have a good enough overview on the situation and if they think it will hurt sales they can simply make a statement. They can handle it.
It’s interesting to discuss about the price but being upset about „idiots“ who have wrong ideas and playing hero for a multi billion dollar corporation is something I’m confused about.
I want it to be a successful product, that I can buy, and will be supported for a useful number of years. $800-1200 feels OK for that. $2000 feels like Apple Vision territory.
Jesus, man: haven’t you ever been excited about a thing before it’s on shelves? Speculated about a sports game before it’s over? Talking about your anticipation is part of the fun.