alt Hacker NewsI like the open platform model more myself (steam deck), but to ignore the trade offs both models present is a bit disingenuous.
One of the major reasons they raised the price on the steam deck is because it is an open platform. Since they have no guarantee you will ever buy or run steam software on the machine they need to make a profit on the hardware.
Nintendo is ECSTATIC to sell its console hardware at a loss to gain market share and software lock-in. This makes it much easier for someone trying to enter the hand-held console market to get decent hardware at a good price.
Like I said, I think the Steam model is more consumer friendly at the end of the day, but lets not act like both models don't have ups and downs for both the company and the consumer.
i don't know. you're taking a really simplistic view of loss leaders that doesn't really apply anymore. you're taking everything valve says at face value.
despite 1/5th of active players on Steam playing Valve titles, valve titles are probably closer to 1/2 of the revenue, since DOTA2 and CSGO are really well monetized F2P games. probably less than 1/10th of the platform's revenue goes to pay-to-play titles like the majority of them do on the switch (except maybe fortnite).
nintendo by comparison: basically none of its titles, despite being very popular, have IAP, and the ones that do (like tracks in mario kart) it's DLC, it's not microtransactions / lootboxes.
so: define consumer friendly. is it really a 3x more expensive console, that primarily sells lootboxes? i feel like this stuff about open or not open misses the forest for the trees. yes, you can play pirated games on a steam deck.