They don’t have the means to produce at scale, which has resulted in wild price fluctuations on their end. (even though to steamdeck OLED did sell out at the much higher price.) To me at most they will continue with the controller, but that’s about it.
Why? The price went up because the cost of components went up. No one else is selling comparable hardware for less.
You can currently get a Lenovo Legion Go S Z2G 512GB for 570€. Slightly more powerful, with a higher resolution VRR screen and official SteamOS support for 200€ less . No touchpads or OLED, but still. It looks like Valve has a disadvantage in sourcing components compared to larger hardware manufacturers.
Still don’t think they’d give up their hardware though.
No, they’re not hurting for cash and everyone is dealing with crazy hardware pricing right now.
They price hiked the steam deck by a lot and it still sold out in one day. With that kind of demand why would they stop?
They don’t have the means to produce at scale
Neither does Apple. The production is easy to outsource.
Not a chance in hell.
Nobody has ever been more wrong about anything in human history.
They’re having trouble because sales are so high. You understand that’s good for a company right?
Extremely doubtful, the Steamdeck seems to be a passion project for Gaben, it is somethibg he believes in.
The question of hardware components is more of an issue of planning.
What Valve needs to do, and probably already have done, is to set up future contracts with manufacturers so they can get the components at a lower price.
Valve is one of the rare company that has a vision(that people actually wanted) and will stick to it long term while adapt to the situation, and they already sink millions if not billions into develop their own unique ecosystem for that. Every hardware you see them put out before this, the first controller, first console, VR, OS, Steam Link, all lead to what they have today. They climbed a cliff to reach here, this temporary setback is really nothing to them.
I’d say no. Small production scale, highly niche target audience, moderately-to-significantly higher than average pricing for Steam/ Valve hardware has pretty much always been their thing.
Basically, Steam / Valve hardware (and the company in general) have a strong “for gamers, by gamers” reputation. One of their methods of maintaining that reputation is by incorporating, for lack of a better term, “premium quirks” into their things (Steam Link was relatively novel at its release (and kinda sucked), the OG Steam controller with the dual touchpads and gyroscope, finger tracking and grip strength monitoring on the Valve Index controllers). They know that the Average Joe gamer will probably just pick up a Quest headset or an Xbox controller, so rather than try to fight for market share that has a built-in customer base (for example, most people that already own a console will just use the controller they already have rather than buy a new one for their PC), they maintain their “gamers first” reputation by offering a more niche, “premium” option.
Edit: Also, I’ve never not seen the Deck being touted as a massive success. Like you said, even at higher than normal prices people will buy them. It would be silly for them not to keep that money printer going, they don’t even necessarily need to increase production, people will practically buy them at whatever speed they come off the line.
Windows is something like 93% of the Steam market the last survey. Valves survival depends on Microsoft not fucking them over. Doing something that may strictly be costing them some money for reducing the threat makes economic sense.
Pushing the Linux number higher will make it more attractive to make a native Linux version of games.
This is a rational long term business plan. As long as their board, investors, and CEO can avoid the chronic “line need go up now!” motivation that pretty much every public company succumbs to we’ll be alright.
Valve is not public, Gabe owns more than 50% of the shares so he has de facto 100% of the power.
Even if they were public, don’t you think that shareholders, CEOs, board would realise the same thing and adapt a similar strategy? Ubisoft, EA and the likes have all pushed their own Steam competitor because they were under the thumb of Valve dominating the market on PC. Which one of the platforms is the one that regularly handed out free games? They don’t have the same urgency to do hardware because they have consoles if Windows locks down.
Yeah, they still have investors, a board, and CEO per my comment, as long as they don’t lose their mind like a public company would, we’ll be good.
Ubisoft is public and EA was public until recently.
Do you mean they lost their mind when they developed their steam competitors?
They don’t have the means to produce at scale…steamdeck OLED
They aren’t going to be manufacturing it themselves. They’ll pay someone else to make it.
And I’d bet that that party isn’t limited by their own capacity, but by how many units Valve’s ordered, which is going to be limited by how many units that Valve thinks the public will buy at current elevated-by-memory-prices rates.
They have been actively expanding it for many years now. Hardware is a long term strategy for Valve and they are definitely not going to step away from it anytime soon. The Steam Deck was and still is hugely successful, and a big factor differentiating Steam from other PC game platforms. The current market might mean a short term change of plans, not more than that.
They better not. I want a fucking Steam controller.
The Steam Deck was instrumental in getting Linux gaming to be taken seriously. If Valve backs out, things will go back to windows being the default again.
They could easily have given up on VR hardware after the Index, but I’m glad they didn’t. We need someone to compete with Meta.
Considering Meta has their entire empire built on the pilfered goods stolen from Valve and then sold to Facebook (at the time) by Palmer Luckey, I’m glad but also surprised Valve didn’t say fuck it and throw in the towel. But then again, Steam exists because Gabe was unhappy with how Microsoft was treating him, so maybe success from spite is a hidden part of their core DNA
Indeed, fuck Palmer Luckey, I like to think Gabe thinks he’s a cunt too.
IMO, we need more and better software more than we need hardware. There are plenty of non-Meta options, though they are all a bit more expensive; but the hardware doesn’t matter if you ain’t got anything worth running on it. Most VR games rn are no better than mobile shovelware trash.
I really hope Valve has been cooking something to launch with the Frame. But personally I’m very happy with my library and play VR FPS most days, player counts could be higher but the community is awesome.
I disagree here. I would like a virtual screen that would be comfortable enough and can be used with glasses. I could watch media and play non vr games on it. also hand traking is nice for virtual inputs.
