Nintendo can make sure their handheld has affordable hardware yet can play all their AAA games as they were meant to. Steam Deck can’t ever have that luxury. Some Steam Deck makers will make expensive ones that can play most of them, some will make cheaper ones that aren’t made for those games at all.

This is very difficult to explain to the casual buyer (think parents buying as a present for their kids).

Sell 15K units at 900 a pop, or sell 150K units at 500 a pop…

We don’t know the margins on these things but I’d think that higher volume sales would be better. But what do I know.

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.

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…

I’m not sure most parents would be buying a handheld pc as a present for their kids. That’s a very expensive present to give a kid that could smash it on the ground or forget somewhere easily.

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.

You have strange opinions regarding kids. Compare the price to a mobile phone.

/father of three

Man, I just bought a refurbished Pixel 7 for $160 for myself. If you think I’m buying a $400+ Steam Deck – let alone some other handheld PC that’s even more expensive – for my kids, you’re outta your damn mind!

I mean, I don’t know valve’s margins but strategically they could sell steam decks at a loss and still come out ahead.

All the kids i know either have hand-me-down phones or new phones that’re at most mid-range or multiple generations old. I.E. the large majority of kids aren’t using 900 dollar phones

I’m not sure I follow. I have strange opinions about kids because I don’t think you should give a kid a 900€ phone/handheld when alternatives under 200€ exist?

I’m glad you can (and want to) buy a 900€ device for each of your 3 children, but I’m not sure how connected to the reality you are if you think that’s the norm.

The norm where? European middle-class, absolutely.

Yeah, because valve is the one paying when users choose to install their copies of windows

Guy, this is Lemmy where the concept of a happy middle class EU/American is simply a lie that doesn’t exist.

If you think that giving a kid a 900€ phone when there’s a much cheaper alternative that does the same is/should be the norm, you are part of a problem called consumerism.

What’s a valid reason to buy an expensive phone to a kid when a much cheaper alternative can do the same?

I think part of the issue here is that you believe that phones that cost 900 EUR really don’t offer anything cheaper alternatives don’t.

So answer me: what’s a feature that a kid needs and you won’t find in a cheaper phone?

Easy. Security (I work in cybersec) and performance (kids like to game).

Do you consider kids to be actual people?

I suspect they don’t have the means to produce higher volumes, or aren’t willing to take that risk

Sounds like you’re spoiling them. I also don’t see what kind of security you can only get in new-ish high end phone that didn’t exist in high end phones of, say, 2018-2021