Has it really been “wildly swinging”? Been pretty solidly one direction, no?
Comment on Valve Reaffirms Steam Machine Summer Launch
Tilgare@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoIt’s only suspicious if you haven’t been watching the wildly swinging RAM pricing. It would be a far worse experience for Steam and for the consumer if they set a price and had to keep jacking it up before the product had even been released.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No, because some of the supply constraints we thought were locked in contracts were actually just handshake agreements that fell through, so that frees up supply and sends prices back down a bit. There’s also the part where this came for RAM first, but then SSDs were hit on a lag because a lot of the same tech is used, and then HDDs were hit on a lag because SSDs were scarce. HDDs don’t really factor into these devices, but there are ripple effects that can make predicting long-term costs difficult.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Where have you seen prices coming down at all? I have only seen up up up.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
RAM prices came down a bit in mid-April, as I said, when one of those deals fell through because it wasn’t actually set in stone, and one of those major AI companies was less cash rich than everyone thought. That doesn’t mean it’s back to where we started, but they came down from their peak, at least for a time, and have somewhat stabilized since then. We’re also seeing data centers meet opposition, not just legally but logistically, and folks are trying to read the tea leaves there for prices, too.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
It can also wildly swing in one direction. The price can go up by a small amount or an insane amount. Creates this funny situation where you either price too high and lose customers or price too low and lose money on every sale, doesn’t matter what you do you’re not going to win. The only thing to do is postpone as long as possible in hopes of prices stabilizing and then release it at the current market price and pray the costs don’t keep rising.
In short, everything is fucked and it’s the worst time probably ever to release new hardware.
Tilgare@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sure - then constantly rising prices still makes the point.
MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
They might have to increase it later, but the batches they already have are of a known price. This just looks like they want to see how much ram prices soar so they can see how much they can ask for the thing
Tilgare@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Of all companies, I think Valve deserves the benefit of the doubt. You’re ascribing business practices to Valve that I have no memory of them using.
0ops@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
They literally just upped the price of their steam decks by a few hundred dollars, with no hardware upgrades, to compensate for the increased price of said hardware. They’re a business, they’ll charge what nets them the most money. What other reason would they have to not announce the price than not yet deciding what would be most profitable for them? They need to strike a balance between charging enough to cover the cost of components and not so much that they start to lose potential sales, so it’s exactly like the other guy said, they’re waiting to see what the prices of components will do before announcing prices for their products that are optimal for money-making.
Tilgare@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This just looks like they want to see how much ram prices soar so they can see how much they can ask for the thing
Charging more to cover their costs is NOT the same thing as maliciously price gouging (which is what was alluded to here).
If the cost of materials goes up, the cost of the device goes up. They’re a business not a charity. I think we both fully agree that they are waiting to see where prices land closer to launch to determine the final pricing of the device. But I don’t agree that they’re optimizing for profit. They already know what margin they expect from this device and might even be planning on eating some margin to keep the price competitive.
The Steamdeck, pre-RAMpocalypse, was maybe one of the best values in gaming hardware, in part because they were subsidizing the price like Sony and Microsoft do for home consoles. Any other handheld PC on the market was 2-3x the price. They can’t be expecting that same kind of sales volume from the Steam Machine, so the amount they can afford to subsidize will be lower for sure.
rtxn@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There’s no winning strategy to reveal the price. Announce a low price early and release a much more expensive product, they get flayed alive. Announce a high price, public interest falls off a cliff. Keeping potential customers guessing at least keeps the Gabecube in the news cycle.
user_6282638282@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Don’t announce a price and see every single comment section devolve into pricing discourse.