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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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The component price changed, what was Gabe supposed to do, start manufacturing its own RAM?
That would be amazing timeline
Dreaming about Pipe RAM by Valve.
They are swimming in billions, they could easily lower the profits they make and give it away for cheaper but that's not their goal.
What do you think the margins are on this thing? You know how much the components cost, it's not hard to figure out about how much it costs them.
Profit margins on consoles are razor thin already, and that's before the skyrocketing price of components.
I'm sorry if that means your mom can't afford to get it for your birthday now, but it is what it is unfortunately.
Considering their ceo bought a 500 millions dollars yatch last year to add to his fleet of mega yatches i believe their margins are super high. A corporation doesn't pay for components the same amount you pay from a retailer.
So Gabe made the Steam Machine with super high margins, sold out, and then went back in time to buy a yacht last year?
You do realize that they just started selling this device, so any wealth he may have had last year is completely unrelated.
by now they have been selling hardware for a decade
And the Steam Deck was widely reported to have razor thin (if not negative) margins.
Its worse than that, if they were to do a Microsoft or Sony and sell it at a loss to try and make money back on the games, then what would happen when they sell through the batch they currently have of presumably pre "BiBi and Donnys special visit to Iran" costed units, then what?
Suddenly all the other components are spiking in price, the pcbs and the plastic cost more, the packaging is more expensive, and they are forced to raise their prices. The sound of screeching from the terminally online intensifies as a bunch of "experts" declare that Valve can afford to lose money because Gabe isn't walking around in a barrel Diogenes style.
As a software company in the hardware industry Valve are a lot further down the chain than the bigger names, they aren't securing super long term contracts with anyone. They don't dictate terms. I doubt they are making a ton of money on any of their hardware, they are just trying to nudge the market in the right direction. We are going to see so many knock off steam machines in the next few years, Microsoft will keep releasing targetted versions of Windows to try to smother SteamOS, its a great time for the rest of the gaming ecosystem while AI fucks the hardware side.