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This is nothing new. Before the steam deck came out, Handheld PCs have already been ~~overpriced~~ expensive. Other manufacturers haven't bothered about affordability before, during ot after the steam deck.
That said, Gabe Newell said the steam deck was priced "painfully", which means they probably had very low margins on the hardware and are making it back on sales on their store. Other manufacturers do not have that luxury.
Steam Deck hits a sweet spot. You can make it more powerful, but it'll cost significantly more. You can make it cheaper, but you'll cut out too many games people want to play.
Also, anything like this with a resolution higher than 720p is wasting pixels and GPU power, IMO.
I wouldnt call devices like the GPDwin overpriced considering it's probably lower volume production and niche use case.
But they are overpriced in direct performance comparison.
Other manufacturers do not have that luxury.
They can find some margin in using a rolling Arch distro instead of paying for Windows, Gabe helpfully provided the template that you can reuse.
Which if anything is other manufacturers benefiting from the R&D that Valve have done with Proton and just making it freely available to anyone.
I doubt Windows is the reason these are more expensive. Microsoft wants Windows in the handheld PC space, so they are likely to provide licenses for free and likely help subsidize the costs a bit, especially if they include trials for gamepass.
Valve can easily sell Steam Decks with $0 profit. Can't say the same for other OEMs.
But we're not taking about other handhelds being 25 bucks more, or 50, or 75, or even 100 more, no, we're taking about being multiple hundreds more
I mean, I don’t know valve’s margins but strategically they could sell steam decks at a loss and still come out ahead.
100%
Before I bought a steam deck I hadn't used steam in years. Now I've bought like 20 games... Its a great way to get people on steam who otherwise wouldnt be interested.
I believe some youtubers mentioned (maybe Tyler McVicker or some other in the space) that they are razor sharp margins and border on being profitable just like a console manufacturer.
If only there was something to be done to slash the price while not losing anything important like using an OS that is FREE... But alas, there's no such thing, I guess we'll have to stick with windows, adding the license price to a hardware that is already expensive...