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Explaining hardware to enthusiasts (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 26 points 8 months ago (3 children)

iirc they said they weren't selling at a loss, but that's not the same thing as selling at a low margin. PC manufacturers have to make essentially 100% of their profit from the initial sale of the device, but valve can make a smaller profit from the sale of each device because they know each device will lead to additional profit through game purchases

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I thought pc makers made side profits with all the bloatware they install. And possibly some weird deals with M$ too.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Like everything else, you can find some that do and some that don't. Best yet, it goes both ways. When someone sells you a bloated PC, they often share a bit of the payoff with you making the price slightly cheaper than would be possible otherwise.

    Historically M$ has even threatened manufacturers NOT to sell with Linux installed. They attacked some major retail brands, threatened to pull their license to sell windows.

    it's a great big clusterfuck

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    They don't know that, if they sell cheap enough it might be worth it for a random office somewhere to order a hundred and use them as work computers with no intention to ever buy a game in them. Also they aren't going to be locked, nothing prevents you from getting one and run games purchased in every market under the sun that isn't steam (and/or pirated games).

    I don't think they have any certainty that they'll even make decent money on them. I am hopeful that this will be good for everyone but can't exactly see how at the moment.

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