this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
150 points (91.7% liked)

Games

21989 readers
333 users here now

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc..
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The title is a bit misleading, as the article lists diverging analysts’ opinions, ranging from Valve willing to sell at a loss or low margins, to high prices due to RAM and SSD price volatility.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blackeco.com/post/2330473

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] M1ch431@slrpnk.net 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

It's likely in everybody's best interest that this is a wild success. Not only will game developers be incentivized to actually optimize their games for reasonable setups; this will unseat Nvidia's monopoly over gamers with their ridiculously overpriced graphics cards and also Microsoft's monopoly of a gamer's operating system.

Nvidia's partnership with Palantir is incredibly concerning and any blow to Nvidia is a welcome one. Encourage these developments and hype this all up.

Holy crap I'd forgotten about that.

Yeah, nvidia needs to die. Nothing tied to palantir should survive.

[–] Zapados@sh.itjust.works 6 points 22 hours ago

Yaaas let's smash the Nvidia monopoly and Palantir's evil plans.

[–] Hannibal@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Number of investors think you should be willing to invest in a machine that you probably don't have money for to enrich them. They think you should buy games at $70 or something instead of wait for them to be $30 like on sale. Like I wait. Not all of us want to be in debt.

[–] M1ch431@slrpnk.net 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

You're fundamentally misunderstanding what this development means for gaming affordability. Not having to buy a scarce, way overpriced Nvidia (or even AMD) external/discrete GPU to play the latest games means that PC gaming is a whole lot cheaper. If game developers are optimizing for hardware like the Steam Machine - budget external graphics cards and iGPUs suddenly become viable again as well.

[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Especially with the llm crash, this may keep the fabs running

Its some degree of good from like every direction.

[–] tjr@lemmy.world -1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Investors? Valve is a private company

[–] DoPeopleLookHere@sh.itjust.works 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

That doesn't mean it doesn't have investors. It means it's not publicly traded. Private investment buy company stock directly. That's the premis behind VC fundraising

[–] Foofighter@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Some analysts think Great headline

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (3 children)

For $1k I think this would be DOA.

[–] Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

You can always just build your own today even.

[–] DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

Yeah but this is what I mean. Valve buying in bulk would be able to offer a better deal than someone try to build their own…

Yeah, if it isn't like $600 USD or less, the thing is as toast as the previous generation of Steam Machines.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 0 points 18 hours ago

It's a PC after all, and Valve has access to chipsets the average consumer normally doesn't. I can see me upgrading my current rig with this if it competes with traditional PCs

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 53 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

People seriously underestimate the performance that you can pull out from some medium-level hardware with an highly-optimized OS. I mean, just watch what they were able to archive with the Deck.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Seriously! Just started replaying cyberpunk on my base model deck and it is buttery smooth! Very impressive for an igpu!

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] tal@lemmy.today 75 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (59 children)

Valve willing to sell at a loss

I don't think that Valve will sell the Steam Machine at a loss.

Closed-system console vendors often do, then jack up the prices of their games and make their money back as people buy games. So why not Valve?

Two reasons.

  1. They sell an open system. If Valve sells a mini-PC below cost, then a number of people will just buy the thing and use it as a generic mini-PC, which doesn't make them anything. A Nintendo Switch, in contrast, isn't very appealing for anything than running games purchased from Nintendo.

  2. They don't have a practical way to charge more for games for just Steam Machine users


their model is agnostic to what device you run a purchased game on. So even if they were going to do that, it'd force them to price games non-optimally for non-Steam-Machine users, charge more than would be ideal from Valve's standpoint.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While I think you’re ultimately right, 6 years ago I would have said the same thing about the Steam Deck idea, so I’m compelled to offer counterpoints.

Valve, very uniquely, does offer the best Linux-based digital games storefront to use on that Linux gaming PC you bought. So, they’re very much positioned to take advantage of the hardware purchase. Users aren’t “locked in”, but they are compelled in, and users may have a smoother time getting games on Steam than trying to set up controller-based launchers on Heroic or something.

It’s like when the pet isn’t literally fenced into the house, and is allowed to roam free, but is reminded that its fluffy toy and warm meals are all back at home, so it’ll never go far.

Valve also might just be more forward-thinking than ~~most game companies~~ most COMPANIES these days. They build goodwill this way and get people obsessed with their brand by having more wins like this.

[–] GazpachoManRandy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

GABECUBE > anything from anyone. I have good faith in Steam. Besides Arizona drinks and Costco food court there really is no other corporation I want to give money to if I can help it. * I do wish they'd have flash sales during the sale events again. Where you could get a new game for $10 for 10 minutes. People hate the launcher but Epic is closer to my heart than Microsoft or Sony too.

load more comments (58 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›