Valve originally expected to lose money on every Steam Deck sold, but thanks to high volume of units sold and other factors this ended up not being the case. Even with tariffs affecting that bottom line, I think the Decks still ended up being more profitable than they ever expected and they can afford to do sales like this, even if they potentially result in hardware being sold at a loss.
Speaking of which, @Railcar8095@lemm.ee you told me 6 months ago to ping you if tariffs come into effect and the price of the deck doesn’t increase.
It’s me! Do you have the comment by any chance or just remember by heart? As mentioned below, the tariffs are mostly in hold until November (or people start asking again about some files and a distraction is needed).
I vaguely remembered being told to ping someone over tariffs, so I did a search for tariffs within the community. The first post that came up was the one, and I found both your comment and mine pretty easily. Here’s the sopuli link to it.
Valve originally expected to lose money on every Steam Deck sold, but thanks to high volume of units sold and other factors this ended up not being the case.
Link? I thought they never confirmed whether they were making a profit on hardware or not
I’m not sure they ever said it explicitly, but they said that selling the original 64GB LCD deck for $400 was a “painful” price point, and there were hardware pricing estimates that guessed each steam deck cost Valve around $500-550 at launch. It’s been awhile since I looked at it, I’ll see if I can get some of the relevant quotes together.
Valve is paying the tariffs for now, like most businesses do, but as an overall tactic it’s unsustainable for the long run. And half of them aren’t actually in effect yet anyway because trump keeps pushing the dates back.
I assume they already have the hardware built and are bascially liquidating it. The 256 seemed a bit of a black sheep in the units, with most people choosing the 64 and upgrading storage themselves, or the 512 to maximize storage from factory + screen upgrade.
Mostly though just making a joke that valve is supposed to be following market trends and hiking the price regardless of actual conditions. The shareholders would be in shambles, if they had any.
Valve originally expected to lose money on every Steam Deck sold, but thanks to high volume of units sold and other factors this ended up not being the case. Even with tariffs affecting that bottom line, I think the Decks still ended up being more profitable than they ever expected and they can afford to do sales like this, even if they potentially result in hardware being sold at a loss.
Speaking of which, @Railcar8095@lemm.ee you told me 6 months ago to ping you if tariffs come into effect and the price of the deck doesn’t increase.
It’s me! Do you have the comment by any chance or just remember by heart? As mentioned below, the tariffs are mostly in hold until November (or people start asking again about some files and a distraction is needed).
I vaguely remembered being told to ping someone over tariffs, so I did a search for tariffs within the community. The first post that came up was the one, and I found both your comment and mine pretty easily. Here’s the sopuli link to it.
Link? I thought they never confirmed whether they were making a profit on hardware or not
I’m not sure they ever said it explicitly, but they said that selling the original 64GB LCD deck for $400 was a “painful” price point, and there were hardware pricing estimates that guessed each steam deck cost Valve around $500-550 at launch. It’s been awhile since I looked at it, I’ll see if I can get some of the relevant quotes together.
FYI lemm.ee doesnt exist anymore but maybe @Railcar8095@lemmy.world is the same person?
My dude Railcar, we are all waiting for your reaction on the price of the steam deck over here.
It’s me haha! But the tariffs war are on hold with the most outrageous frozen until November so…
And this is on a sale of the first version? I would be surprised about a permanent across the board discount, not this.
Sorry, but:
Yep, yep, I’m never gonna get that baseline level of internet brain poisoning down to zero, am I. -sigh-
You fell for it, fool!
Ahhhhhh i need charge to my ham sandwich or something!
jfc jojo is a fucking fever dream
Valve is paying the tariffs for now, like most businesses do, but as an overall tactic it’s unsustainable for the long run. And half of them aren’t actually in effect yet anyway because trump keeps pushing the dates back.
My guess would be that they are literally just doing a clearance sale on excess stock to free up some warehouse space somewhere.
Warehouse rent costs money, maybe they dont wanna pay it for nothing, or maybe that’re working on some new shit they need that space for.
New one was in testing a while back so maybe they want to clear everything to build demand up
I assume they already have the hardware built and are bascially liquidating it. The 256 seemed a bit of a black sheep in the units, with most people choosing the 64 and upgrading storage themselves, or the 512 to maximize storage from factory + screen upgrade.
Mostly though just making a joke that valve is supposed to be following market trends and hiking the price regardless of actual conditions. The shareholders would be in shambles, if they had any.