While everyone has been talking about a new or updated model of the Steam Deck throughout this year, my biggest question basically was “So if an improved Deck model comes out, cool, but how expensive would they make it?” Part of why the Steam Deck has been so popular and accessible was how inexpensive it was compared to other PC handhelds, and I thought that if Valve was going to make a new model of the system with a better screen and such, the price of it would be majorly increased and lose said accessibility because of it.
Somehow, Valve didn’t end up doing that. They put in all of these improvements to the Deck, not just with an OLED screen, and you’re actually getting a better deal when it comes to it’s price. When comparing the LCD and OLED $650 models for example, the old model has 512 GBs of storage, and the OLED model has 1 TB among other improvements. Not to mention the fact that the LCD 256 GB model Deck got a permanent price cut to $400 instead of $530, and even with the old 64 and 512 GB models being phased out, they also got price cuts, with the LCD 512 GB model specifically going from $650 to only $450.
I don’t plan to get an OLED model Deck myself. I’m contempt with my own 64 GB model Deck and don’t have the money to buy a whole new model, but I do hope that everyone else has fun using the OLED Steam Deck when it releases! It’s nice to see this system continue to be this successful, and I look forward to whatever else Valve has planned for it!
TL;DR; Valve proved that new/better does NOT need to cost more. Manufacturers play number games to justify costs or “loss leader” status to placate people.
Valve has PROVEN that you don’t need to pay out the nose for an upgraded device. I REALLY hope people notice this and take companies to task over it. Steam Deck is NOT a loss leader, and I think many times companies (Nintendo, Sony, MS) claim their products are so people don’t look at the pricing too much. I have seen other manufacturers do this, and I suspect the other console manufacturers do this as well… They take the actual cost to produce (parts + manufacturing costs/labor + packaging) and that gives them C. They expect to sell 1 million units over the next two years, and 2 million across the practical life of the produce. Then they take advertising costs A, production costs P and they want to recoup them in the first 100k units. So (A + P)/100k. Let’s not forget the overhead O. Overhead is the peons in the office and support centers, but we’ll spread that over the first year, so O/1M. So we are looking at $200 or so for this widget. NOW we get to the good stuff, the guy who headed the project will get a $500k bonus, and the CEO of course will get a $2M bonus, and we want to make sure we get paid, so we’ll spread that across half of the first year… Just in case it doesn’t go as well as expected. Now we are at $500 for our widget. We will price it at $449 and call it a loss leader since we are “losing money” on it, but we will keep it that price for at least the first year. Then we will refresh it with more efficient manufacturing process and more readily available parts so it is actually cheaper with very little additional development costs, and sell it for $479, and we’ll discount the other one to $399 until we are out of stock.
It’s all a numbers game and how you want to view the numbers, and a large chunk of those costs of course go to the top 3-5 people in the company (this is more prevalent in the US though). I think in Japan the execs make like 10-20x the average for the company, but in the US it’s like 200x.
Ave Ford Salary is $66,000 + $12,000 in Benefits/other compensation
The 4 highest execs made an AVERAGE of just over $13 MILLION in Salary/Benefits/Compensation. So that what 170x ?Wait until the Steam Deck 2 Ultra Pro Max OLED comes out
Eh I’m pretty happy with my upgraded 64gb model myself, though I’m a bit salty that it hasn’t really been all that long since I bought it, and valve saying there wouldn’t be any upgrades or anything new for years to come, then a month later releasing something new while also doing a price drop on the 512 gb model which is now the same price as the 64 gb model. And the 64 gb model is now cheaper as well, that bit was pretty screwed up. But I can agree with what youce said, respect for not upping the price like nintendo did.
Valve is just catching W’s all the time
They are making so much money on these it’s crazy.
I think Valve should continue to focus the Steam Deck series as the all-around PC handheld that has great battery life. SD2, will probably be Phoenix 30W performance at 15W, which I think would be great with the introduction of an even bigger battery (60 to 70wh).
will probably be Phoenix 30W performance at 15W,
I doubt that they’ll use an off-the-shelf APU compared to a custom design APU for them.
The deak with the oled is basically the same as the old deak inside it doesn’t compare to the lenova legion go I think
I would love it if steam released upgraded parts that you can put into your OG steam deck, helps reduce e-waste and extends the longevity of the product. Would love to be able to buy the OLED screen itself and just replace the old one.
I think this would be a great idea as it would allow people to buy the cheaper versions and slowly upgrade their device as they have money. Yeah, by the time they are done it might be a $750 deck, but if it was done over the course of a year it doesn’t feel like it :)
Yeah, and I wait in the future, look it available in others countrys, I’m From Nicaragua and I’m crying for one
You can’t go too far because Ally & Go offer full windows gaming for $700’ish. Gonna assume that those windows focused handhelds don’t have issues with games not launching. Just tried to play Bioshock Infinite which launched fine when I bought it this spring. Now it won’t launch at all, verified file integrity & tried other suggested Proton versions. checked proton db and am totally stumped as the game will not launch. Apparently I now have to move an exe file to somewhere & I can’t find full directions on exactly what to do. Doubting that a windows handheld would have this problem . It is what it is
The Ally and Go both have their own issues. Games assume they’re running on a regular Windows box, and sometimes this leads to all kinds of weird control or screen fit issues.
they literally made it cheaper. If we compare LCD 512 to OLED 512 it’s literally cheaper(price on launch)
Literally?
Steam deck is crap