this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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Valve says it isn't subsidizing the Steam Machine's $1050 price because of its "religious" refusal to "build a more closed system" (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 months ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What even is their profit margin after all of the software work they've done for it?

[–] nathanjent@programming.dev 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Valve probably wants consumers to have a machine in their home that is dedicated to running their marketplace. They don't care if it's hardware they sold. They want the same accessiblity to their store front that consoles have.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

I mean for sure. They have a solid revenue stream in a world with an open platform they can sell on. Hence the Linux development to hedge where windows is going.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You can easily separate Proton development costs from the Steam Machine.

I have been buying Proton supported games on Steam and they know it.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What's the profit margin on that do you think?

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I have no idea, but Valve does because they have the analytics for it. They can see what games are bought, played and ran on Proton.

And it seems profitable.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

It could be a loss leader or just a hedge at the moment 🤷

They could have been loosing money on it until they started selling hardware. Though they could still be losing money on hardware even. No idea rbh