This product was obviously completed in plenty of time to head off competition if Valve chose to do so. It’s obvious that they intentionally scheduled the announcement for AFTER the Lenovo was in people’s hands and the initial hype and first impressions had a chance to percolate. I think that’s pretty cool.
its still a CORP that needs to turn a profit. they get a 30% of ANY steam title. they swim in money
I imagine this is precisely why they’re not bothered by the competition. And why they’re selling their units at a loss. Being a software first company that’s how they come out on top, combined with a customer support service that’s actually competent.
Oh they’re definitely gonna rake that money back after getting more users into their ecosystem, it’s a long game. But even if the project ended as a failure, thanks to the 30% plus the many people with a gambling addiction, Valve is still not sweating anytime soon. You’re absolutely correct, they swim in money indeed.
You’ve made a good point, but they don’t even mind developers selling a portion of copies of their games off site, bypassing that 30% and effectively becoming their own competitor.