alt Hacker News> that could be much better for them in the long term.
i agree. Valve's money machine is with the steam platform, rather than any hardware sales - breaking even on hardware is sufficient imho.
Valve's existential threat is from microsoft closing off windows somehow (or extracting rent...like a store!). Therefore, pushing steam machines which can be run without windows, is both business expansion as well as an insurance policy.
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> i agree. Valve's money machine is with the steam platform, rather than any hardware sales - breaking even on hardware is sufficient imho.
Wasn't that true with the previous incarnation of the steam machine, the valve index, steam controller, etc.? IIRC their VR gear was some of the most expensive consumer level gear on the market.
I'd wonder how much Valve has agreed to buy other parts and tooling/manfacturing services. Then they could have scenarios where they have a pile of AMD chips and the rest of the parts, but limited or no VRAM/RAM/NAND to complete the systems so they can be sold, or they've spent a pile of money designing and working with a manufacturer to get to the stage where they can start making batches, but can't get the volume to bring in a real benefit.
Being pragmatic, I wonder if Valve benefit from the health of the PC market, whether they'll also put efforts into helping people get more life out of their existing machines, or individuals/businesses refurbishing to sell on the used market with more confidence. There's already an angle for reducing e-waste with the win10 end of life if it can be tied into installing linux.