Also, by virtue of the fact that the Deck and Steam Machine are de-facto PCs, if they made those products loss-leaders, they would get bought up to use for non-gaming purposes and reduce availability for their intended audience. The same thing happened to the PS3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
Comment on Valve has raised Steam Deck prices in the US
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 2 hours agoLess of an issue with Valve. They don’t have as much of a need for a hardware loss leader since they earn from Steam regardless of which hardware it’s running on.
SparroHawc@piefed.world 1 hour ago
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
As I understand it, none of the consoles are loss leading these days.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
If they structure their supplier contracts anything like the auto industry does, that would only be because they are on the back end of the product’s production lifecycle.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I think they lost the appetite for loss leading around the time the PS4 and Xbox One came out. I have no insider information, but this is what I tend to hear from those that do. Nintendo famously doesn’t loss lead, and that’s a long standing policy, but the latest word on Switch 2 is that their price increase keeps them profitable but with smaller margins than they had when it initially launched.