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.
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-...
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.