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This is nothing new. Before the steam deck came out, Handheld PCs have already been ~~overpriced~~ expensive. Other manufacturers haven't bothered about affordability before, during ot after the steam deck.
That said, Gabe Newell said the steam deck was priced "painfully", which means they probably had very low margins on the hardware and are making it back on sales on their store. Other manufacturers do not have that luxury.
Other manufacturers do not have that luxury.
They can find some margin in using a rolling Arch distro instead of paying for Windows, Gabe helpfully provided the template that you can reuse.
Which if anything is other manufacturers benefiting from the R&D that Valve have done with Proton and just making it freely available to anyone.
I doubt Windows is the reason these are more expensive. Microsoft wants Windows in the handheld PC space, so they are likely to provide licenses for free and likely help subsidize the costs a bit, especially if they include trials for gamepass.
Steam Deck hits a sweet spot. You can make it more powerful, but it'll cost significantly more. You can make it cheaper, but you'll cut out too many games people want to play.
Also, anything like this with a resolution higher than 720p is wasting pixels and GPU power, IMO.
There are several competitors that are more powerful, like the ROG Ally. They also need a bigger battery to support it, or they have worse battery life. And they're more expensive.
Clear text and UI is an issue because games don't scale their shit properly.
I wouldnt call devices like the GPDwin overpriced considering it's probably lower volume production and niche use case.
But they are overpriced in direct performance comparison.
Valve can easily sell Steam Decks with $0 profit. Can't say the same for other OEMs.
But we're not taking about other handhelds being 25 bucks more, or 50, or 75, or even 100 more, no, we're taking about being multiple hundreds more
I mean, I don’t know valve’s margins but strategically they could sell steam decks at a loss and still come out ahead.
I believe some youtubers mentioned (maybe Tyler McVicker or some other in the space) that they are razor sharp margins and border on being profitable just like a console manufacturer.
100%
Before I bought a steam deck I hadn't used steam in years. Now I've bought like 20 games... Its a great way to get people on steam who otherwise wouldnt be interested.
If only there was something to be done to slash the price while not losing anything important like using an OS that is FREE... But alas, there's no such thing, I guess we'll have to stick with windows, adding the license price to a hardware that is already expensive...
Technically the OS isn't free: Valve pays a team of developers to maintain the SteamOS and also donates money to Arch and Ubuntu foundations as well as to the Proton and Wine dev teams as well as contributes code to the linux kernel. All costing them money, that they eat but could easily find a way to charge the end user
I mean... bazzite? ChimeraOS? You don't need to go to steamOS to find a free linux distro that works well with games. Hell, you could even customize one based on any of those so you don't have to pay for a windows license for your products.
Technically the OS isn't free
And practically, that doesn't matter. Valve isn't charging anyone a licensing fee for the software they've developed, so as far as the cost of the device goes SteamOS is free. Just because they could charge for it doesn't change that.
Any device that come with SteamOS by default, is a device that doesn't come with both Windows and Xbox game store by default. Basically Valve isn't paying for the OS, it's paying for devices that run Steam Store by default (instead direct, unfair, competition from Microsoft)
Can Windows PC come by default with Steam Store? Of course... if Microsoft allow them to.
they're also forgetting the touchpads. the touchpads are so fucking good, and they add so much usability and flexibility. so much, I think, that no amount of superior performance, resoution, or battery life can make up for the lack of them.
That title is cringe as fuck. There's nothing concerning about it at all. Market saw Steam Deck's success so they dove in. Whether they survive is dependent on if they provide good price points or justification for a higher price. Super simple.
I mean there will be customers for those products, I just don't get why they're leaving the mass appeal demographic on the table
Sell 15K units at 900 a pop, or sell 150K units at 500 a pop...
We don't know the margins on these things but I'd think that higher volume sales would be better. But what do I know.
I suspect they don't have the means to produce higher volumes, or aren't willing to take that risk
I just want something that I can play up to say Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 level emulation
It's called enshitification, we knew it was coming.