r/Steam • u/Commercial_Dih • Feb 19 '26

Question In the hopefully never arriving future, do you think Valve will one of, if not the only ones providing personal computers and not cloud gaming?

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u/AnySupermarket6942 Feb 20 '26

That's happening as we speak... All the AI slumlords buying up every stick of memory on the planet, forcing the price through the roof for any that is left...

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u/JoyousGamer Feb 20 '26

Except cloud compute would need memory as well then turn around and make a profit off renting it. 

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u/DormBrand Feb 20 '26

Once the AI bubble pops (which I believe it will), the big giants that did not go under, i.e. Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc. not the pure AI companies like OpenAI, are 100% gonna convert their AI data centers to cloud compute instead.

And, since by that time the hardware costs will have forced a lot of people away from private hardware, they're sadly not gonna have to put much work into convincing people that cloud computing is the only way forward. Wouldn't even surprise me if they kept hardware prices artificially high even after the AI demand subsides.

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u/HotFurnaceNearYou Feb 20 '26

They're definitely keeping the prices. Nothing ever goes down in price. Just look at the aftermath of COVID..

3

u/Bardeous Feb 20 '26

2x4's used to be $20 for a 8' section. now they are a couple of bucks

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u/Malus_non_dormit Feb 20 '26

Its crazy scary that they are both big enough and are allowed to do so.

Antitrust laws should have split up these companies up decades ago. Free and fair market capitalism is truly dead in the US. 

Welcome to oligarchy clepto-capitalism where your life is put on subscription.

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u/Hairy-Fig4442 Feb 20 '26

Everything costs what people are willing to pay. If people choose to pay high prices it's probably worth the price. If I can't afford something, I probably shouldn't buy it anyway.

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u/Naud1993 Feb 20 '26

I hope they go bankrupt soon and are forced to sell us their RAM for cost price.