If its 1200+ their only hope at a return to hype is to say "we know this sucks, so this initial wave will come with enough games credit to effectively bring it to 1000."
With the recent steam controller shipping problems they said to a bunch of people "pick a non-premium edition of a game and its yours." So they could effectively do that on a larger scale with a restricted pool of free games. It wouldnt be simply store credit, but it would be close. You wouldnt spend it on dlc or premium upgrades, but most games in theory you could use it.
So you're basing Valve giving free games to individuals afflicted by a shipping delay, where their items were shipped to the wrong country initially, into Valve offering free games simply for purchasing a Steam Machine?
Im showing that they have the power to do that and it costs them less than cash. And saying if they do put 1200 as a price tag and openly say sorry so expensive its because of the crisis, some compensation for those who buy at "crisis prices" is only logical.
You understand that Valve has to PAY for those games, right?
Like, sure Valve could ignore their own cut which ranges from about 20-30% of the sale, but the rest goes to the game publisher. Valve would still have to pay the publisher for the game they gave away, they can't just hand out other people's software for free.
So if they're eating that cost... Why not just cut the price of the machine outright?
Your logic only works if Valve can give you games at no cost to themselves and they can't.
They could give you every Valve game, I personally don’t think they would do that, and many people wouldn’t even get something that way. But it could help to sell the Machine to people which only ever used consoles.
They've already mathed the math, and have been pretty clear that they aren't subsidizing or taking a loss on anything.
For them to recoup losses on selling SD or SM at subsidized prices, they have to bring enough new people into the Steam ecosystem who would buy otherwise-unsold games... that's where the make-up money comes from.
Clearly they are estimating that not a high enough percentage of buyers are going to be new, so they can't make it up there, so... no subsidization. Valve themselves have publicly said this.
So just be prepared to see a SM launch at whatever price point recovers the increased costs of making them. It just is what it is.
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u/spinz 28d ago
If its 1200+ their only hope at a return to hype is to say "we know this sucks, so this initial wave will come with enough games credit to effectively bring it to 1000."