@[email protected]
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524d

Only after they closed their system, which they did because they were losing money to every single enterprise in the world who wanted a cluster and PS3 were the cheapest option.

Steve Dice
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124d

The PS3 was using a rare CPU that you could only get from it or from some enterprise dealer at a much higher price. The Steam Machine is a standard x86 computer that can’t match the ubiquitous ThinkCentres in price/performance.

@[email protected]
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124d

If it’s sold at a loss like a console it would beat the price/performance of any other x86 chip on the market, which is why they can’t sell it at a loss, ergo my point.

ObliviousEnlightenment
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122d

Thry could absolutely do that. Valve makes a cut off every Steam game sold. If anything, it’d be MORE viable for them than any other console maker given the wider library

@[email protected]
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122d

You’re completely missing the point. People can buy steam machines and use them as a PC without ever opening steam, or worse, use them as servers or parts of a cluster. If Steam Machines were sold at a loss they would , by definition, be cheaper than equivalent hardware, so companies would buy 10k of them to put into a warehouse to run stuff because it would be cheaper than buying the same thing from other places. This is what happened to the PS3, non-blocked systems can’t be sold at a loss because you can’t guarantee that whoever is buying it will use them for your intended purpose.

ObliviousEnlightenment
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018d

If you’re playing video games on PC, you fucking have steam.

Glog78
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18d

@IzzyJ @Nibodhika

I personally think, that if your are gaming on linux you should value valve alot for how much money they have put into the linux ecosystem and it’s not bad to buy at their store. On the other hand there is alot of gaming happing outside of steam (including things which won’t make it to steam).

ObliviousEnlightenment
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118d

I do absolutely celebrate the contributions they’ve made, Proton beats the shit out of every alternative and it’s not even close. Black hole vs mouse levels of curbstomp

I also think people with bad values should suffer for those values. I am an ideologue

@[email protected]
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118d

So? PCs have other uses outside gaming, you know?

ObliviousEnlightenment
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117d

If you’re playing video games on PC, did you not read it?

@[email protected]
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117d

Yes, but my whole point was that PCs have other uses, so Valve selling a PC at a loss can’t recover the money with games because people won’t necessarily play games on that machine. Saying “if you’re playing games” to that point is like someone explaining to you why seatbelts are needed in cars and you replying with “if you never crash they’re useless”, like OF COURSE that if we enter your hypothetical example everything works, the whole point is about the disaster that would happen if that wasn’t the case.

Steve Dice
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23d

You seem to think the Steam Machine will be much faster than the specs imply.

@[email protected]
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124d

If they’re sold at a loss, by definition they have to be cheaper than anything sold at a gain with the same performance.

Steve Dice
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124d

And if my grandma had wheels she’d be a bicycle.

@[email protected]
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123d

And then we could make money having people riding her. If you’re going to start a hypothetical scenario of Valve still being able to make money selling at a loss you can’t be angry that people are replying on the basis your premise is true.

Steve Dice
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23d

You’re the one that brought up Valve selling at a loss because you think anything under $800 would be selling at a loss. I’m telling you it is not.

@[email protected]
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023d

I never said $800 would be selling at a loss, in fact I said that there’s a good possibility that they can sell it cheaper than 800 and still make a profit because they buy things in bulk. You were the first one who even mentioned it being profitable for them selling at a loss:

They could totally make money selling it at a loss.

Which is completely false, if they sold at a loss by definition they would lose money on each sale, and because it’s an open platform people would just buy the cheap hardware to be used for any project which would make Valve bleed money like Sony did with their PS3 until they closed the system.

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