YouTube star LinusTechTips has revealed that Valve wasn’t overly impressed with his suggestion of a $500 price tag for the dubbed Steam Console.
“I can’t tell you what the price will be, because I literally don’t know,” he said on the November 15 episode of the WAN show.
“When I said I’m disappointed it isn’t going to follow a console pricing model, where its subsided by the fact that manufacturer is going to be taking 30% of every game sold on it over the lifespan of this thing, because I feel that would be a more meaningful product, they asked what I meant by console price and I said $500. Nobody said anything, but the energy in the room wasn’t great.”
Non-console pricing may make it overpriced, and it may be DOA, but the alternative here is worse. Console pricing will lead to a walled garden and enshittification.
If it’s priced like a console and subsidized so that Valve relies on game sales to profit, then they have a huge incentive to lock down the machine with DRM and restrict user ability to install third party launchers, games, etc.
This would not only contradict their Deck strategy, but be a repudiation of one of the last healthy and consumer-friendly open design and product philosophies left among the gaming platforms. So I hope they do not sell hardware at a loss in this case. Let it sink or swim on its merits.
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Non-console pricing may make it overpriced, and it may be DOA, but the alternative here is worse. Console pricing will lead to a walled garden and enshittification.
If it’s priced like a console and subsidized so that Valve relies on game sales to profit, then they have a huge incentive to lock down the machine with DRM and restrict user ability to install third party launchers, games, etc.
This would not only contradict their Deck strategy, but be a repudiation of one of the last healthy and consumer-friendly open design and product philosophies left among the gaming platforms. So I hope they do not sell hardware at a loss in this case. Let it sink or swim on its merits.