I have seen that Valve has said the Frame will be cheaper than the Index. That would really make it.
This is gonna be good.
The lacking international support with Valve hardware limits market spread like most consoles. Plus they'll probably not really advertise outside of Steam store and these initial YouTube videos/Influencer releases.
Valve kinda hamstrings their own full potential despite doing so well already.
What markets can't you buy Steamdeck in? (honest question)
It's pretty much only available in US, EU, Australia and a few Asian countries (Japan, S. Korea). I can't even buy one officially in Switzerland, and I imagine the markups are much higher anywhere in the global south.
you couldn’t buy them in aus until like a year ago
They will show up in stores in Japan at least
If the price is similar to a PS5 I will buy one. I was going to build a PC this winter or spring for my son but this might be even better, we dont care about running at max settings I just need a decent frame rate and stability.
TL;DR: The Steam Machine's specs are on par or better with the PS5.
So, old.
The Switch was also old at launch, and it completely dominates the market to the point where Sony openly reclassified it as "not a competitor" to save face.
Nintendo is an evil, horrible company, but at this point they proved beyond a doubt that, yes... The specs race IS a red herring and the most dollars do NOT care.
Well, the switch has relatively no competition and a long history of good titles.
If the steamdeck could be priced at Switch levels, I think it might dominate. Obviously there is a huge hardware difference making that price high.
The Switch 2 having already outsold the Steam Deck at a 5:1 ratio shows that, as awesome as the hardware that Valve makes is, they simply aren't pushing it in a way that will capture the mainstream. They can certainly "win" the console generation by making a device that is better than the PS5, but they have 10+ years of work ahead of them if they want to win any console generation in terms of units sold.
If the GameCube is $100 I’ll buy it
As good as they are, the Deck, Machine, and Frame are more niche gamer products that your typical console gamer engages with. This will be a great product and side hustle for Valve and its consumers but they aren't beating out Switch/2 lol.
I say this as someone looking forward to buying a Steam Machine if the price is in the $500/$600 ish range
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