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Comment by foo12bar | Hacker News Reader

At this price point they should have never released it, they should have waited. Everywhere I see reviews of it on the internet, come along with forced smiles and talk about how they agree with the philosophy behind it and they should be commended for fighting against Windows. But ultimately no one recommends this to the general public.

The writing is on the wall. This thing is going to flop.

Only thing they can do now is keep it on the market, and in a few years upgrade *and* discount this thing in hopes of reigniting the hype.

If they withdraw it, the very small but existing set of current buyers will scream bloody murder about being abandoned, and if they then try and re-release, trust will already have been broken.

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> The writing is on the wall.

This thing is going to sell out.

If prices go back to normal, v2 of this product will be great. This version, at these specs, at this point in time would only be a buy if it was good value (like $500). People will buy them all anyway.

Selling out doesn't equate to success. They've already said the initial launch will be heavily limited.

What matters is if they make a profit throughout the product's lifecycle. Not whether they sell out on initial release.

> What matters is if they make a profit throughout the product's lifecycle.

That may not matter either.

In fact, the most likely outcome is that they sell out of inventory, and the next iteration of the device gets GTA6 level hype. The scarcity of the premium product.

It all depends on how well they support the current iteration, though.

If it turns into a Google Glass or an Apple Vision Pro and is left nearly or actually abandoned, then I think people won't be so interested.

This doesn't make any sense.

They use the OS in multiple products. Tons of people run it on their own hardware.

They could probably not update a single thing on there and it wouldn't matter, the games themselves are mostly running through an emulation layer anyway and will continue to work.

So what are you saying? They can do this single limited release and then discontinue it and everyone is going to be happy about it? People will just flock to the next version when it comes out and not feel burned by what happened?

Not many people run games on linux, only about 5%, amd of those nearly all keep a windows OS around to handle edge cases and upgrading firmware, etc.

This is what the fight is about. If Steam can't get linux based devices into the hands of enough people continuing to support it will remain a money pit for them for as long as they try.

Releasing the Steam box at this price is not helping their cause. They have to recover from this now.

You don't understand how Steam works, the culture around it, or why people are excited about this.

> So what are you saying? They can do this single limited release and then discontinue it and everyone is going to be happy about it?

They're selling a gaming console, of which in their case the hardware is the least important part and a means to an end. It is commodity hardware. No integrated memory. No special sauce.

These are hardware drivers that are a part of the Linux kernel.

What they are selling is a portal (grin) to their ecosystem, and an experience that is different from their competitors. One that unlike many of their competitors, doesn't require a monthly fee to be a part of (multiplayer). AND access to it is now scarce. A limited premium product.

> Not many people run games on linux, only about 5%

You're going to find a bunch of those on this website, myself included. No windows PC laying around though.

I game on Fedora 44 w/ Steam.

> Releasing the Steam box at this price is not helping their cause. They have to recover from this now.

You just don't get it.

I think you're too cloae to take any criticism. Any result seems like it'd be a success to you.

Valve has been working toward this ecosystem for over a decade. This is a single product offering among a growing product line that provides access to their store.

To be clear, their competitors are pretty pathetic.

> I think you're too cloae to take any criticism

I'm not even their target market, nor would I buy one when I can roll my own on my own hardware - even using SteamOS if I wanted.

https://www.theverge.com/games/953411/valve-steamos-desktop-...

Their competitors are xbox and playstation and the cost is way more than each of these. You admit you won't even buy it because I guess you are too technologically inclined. And yet it's not a flop to you. Why?

The fact they've worked on running games on linux for over a decade and still only have a 5% market cap does not bode well for them.

This was supposed to be their great moment, and they ruined it with an expensive box with subpar performance. They should have waited. Now after the hype dies down and it doesn't sell, they'll just have another black eye they have to recover from.

Look, I run linux and have for 30 years. I run games on linux and have steam on linux installed myself. But I'm not trying to fool myself and others that it's some great success story. It isn't.

I guess time will tell. ;)

I think most of the non-success outcomes involve an objectively bad experience, regardless of the price. Example of that would be a buggy system that feels more like a cut down PC than a console. From reviews, we see that this outcome doesn't seem to be the case.

The other potential failure outcomes involve selling the product at a loss, or tying up too much cash in it and having liquidity issues while stock moves. Valve's cash flow is likely excellent, we know they're not selling it at a loss and we know they aren't producing too many.

So overall, the possible outcomes all seem like different degrees of success.

Steam Deck & Machine appear to be very low margin, so Valve will make very little profit on them whether they sell a lot or a little. So profit isn't the success measure they're aiming for.

They're all just tools to get people to buy more games, which is where the margin is. And the existence of the Steam Machine makes the ecosystem more attractive even if you don't actually buy the Machine.

> Selling out doesn't equate to success

If you have no revenue, you can say you’re pre-revenue... It’s not about how much you earn. It’s about what you’re worth. And who’s worth most? Companies that lose money.

Dave2D covered it very well.

https://youtu.be/Huw11M9aaMk

> Everywhere I see reviews of it on the internet,

Gaming reviews have diverged from reality. Everything is about finding controversy and something to be angry about. Gaming journalism and social media are extremely toxic, but not really indicative of average gamers or consumers any more.

> The writing is on the wall. This thing is going to flop.

I would bet that it's going to be oversubscribed and sell out.

I bet it sells out, too. But selling out a heavily limited release doesn't mean they are going to make a profit.

They’re privately owned, not every project needs to be profitable. It can just not lose money and strengthen the Steam ecosystem where the real profit is.

If this thing becomes unobtanium unless you’re a game studio or a journalist, but becomes a standard optimization/compatibility target for game developers like the Steam Deck has been, I would consider it successful, imo.

The Steam Deck also sells out but the overall userbase is a drop in the ocean compared to the Switch.

They may not recoup R&D costs for a while depending on volume, but they will make a profit per unit. They can't sell them as loss leaders like regular console manufacturers can, since then general computer buyers would get them as a priced down unlocked PC.

And importantly, they have the finances to support that R&D expenditure taking longer than expected to be recouped. The same situation with a small company would be very different than a company with solid income elsewhere.

I'm sure that the steam machine will sell out just because A) it's a small batch B) It's Valve C) It's a neat form factor.

But as someone who was originally going to pick one up (thinking it was going to be a great little gaming PC powerhouse), seeing it come in close to last in most of the GamersNexus benchmarks was pretty disheartening (pulling 20-50FPS at 1080p on most recent games).

I was hoping that they were going to bring a console mindset to PC building to create something that exceeded what a DIY-er could do with off the shelf parts. But the fact you can make a faster DIY machine for cheaper right now feels...eh, what's the point?

My guess is they sell the first few batches, then Steam Machine goes on a small vacation for a few years while they wait for prices to come back down.

Waited until when? 2028?

I predict it sells out

> The writing is on the wall. This thing is going to flop.

No. They've made just enough to sell out and drive demand.

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