I keep seeing people saying things like, “it’s not like the lcd version becomes useless after the OLED” and that’s true. However, there was no real warning in advance that this was coming. In fact, Valve played up how much it wasn’t coming and how satisfied they were with the original deck.

I decided to go with the deck over the ally shortly after the reviews because of steamOS and the ease of use experience, but with the OLED announced now I can’t help but feel like I got played.

Between the OLED, the ally and the original, I now have the device with the worst screen, the loudest fan and as someone who also plays plugged in all the time, the worst performance(as far as power and wifi goes).

They couldn’t have given a heads up to us that a refresh was coming? A tempering of the expectations, saying hey, it’s not a steam deck 2, but stay tuned. If I had known this just a few months ago I would’ve waited or bought the ally.

I’ve always considered myself a valve fanboy and I know technology moves fast, but this feels pretty blatantly anti-consumer, which isn’t typically valves approach.

At the end of the day buyer beware I suppose.

  • Random_Person1020@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I get how it feels a bit negative but end of the day, after Valve’s statements there was a whole range of competition launched and nothing forces people to move faster than competition. So I think it is OK that they backtrack on what they said and launched a refresh earlier to retain market leadership.

    Commercially for Valve, it also doesnt make sense to announce a launch earlier in this case as they will have a stock of LCD systems. Which they are already selling at steep discounts now to get rid of it.

    For a “small” company like Valve, I guess having inventory of LCD steam decks is more painful than Nintendo or others.

    If they announced earlier, they can watch LCD unit sales drop off and have a harder time to shift those units.

    Seems fine to me, what they did.

    Then note carefully Gabe said, he never said at a loss and following his statements, it can also be inferred that the 512GB model was not loss leading. So having a refresh here of the premium end may also be another revenue stream for them. As they were surprised that demand was for 512GB rather than 64GB.

    Again, good commercial move and also great for consumers.