- cross-posted to:
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
Just noticed all models of the steam deck are marked as OOS now.
I know the LCD models were going but the other oled models were still good.
Did I miss any news about there being a freeze on the sales from Valve or any info about this?
Rampocalypse is to blame. They’re simply not manufacturing any more units until memory prices drop (since raising prices on the SD would be a PR nightmare and they wouldn’t be able to eat the margins without that).
Since its just the US only I think Tariffs might be to blame. Valve might be just waiting for another swing in the whims of the administration then bring another batch in. Valve can do that as they don’t have to worry about stock price tanking.
There are two tracks of thought here.
The US Tariffs are raising the cost too high. So US inventory is not being restocked.
The DRAM constraints are raising the cost to manufacture too high. That affects both the RAM and SSD in the system. This would affect all manufacturing of the Steam Deck.
As for it only being the US, they’re not going to be shifting international inventory after already situating it in more local distribution centers and dealing with customs. So the question comes down to, are the international stores/distribution centers still being restocked, or is everything on hold and the US just happens to be the first to sell out?
It’s probably both. If they have limited manufacturing due to RAM prices, then they are not going to sell them in the US, due to tariffs increasing the cost further. Any supply they do have is probably going to Europe and others.
deleted by creator
Source?
Valve has an absurd amount of money, they could easily eat the loss if they wanted to.
There’s a reason valve has an absurd amount of money.
Yes, having a quasi-monopoly on selling PC games online. They are constantly burning money.
And do they eat the loss on this quasi-monopoly, or do they make a healthy profit?
It means that they can spend money on “hobby projects” like employing gamedev teams that don’t actually ship anything and prototype until everybody leaves with boreout or their other hardware endeavours, the Deck itself isn’t even that profitable. Throw it on the wall and see what sticks is a luxurious innovation strategy that can only be employed if you make that much money.
You’re so close. And if the deck is already unprofitable, then might they be unwilling to incur further losses on it if significant fundamentals changed?
Also lol are you an employee of Valve or Tim Sweeney or something? Because why would anyone be upset at this, it benefits the consumer in almost every way one can think of. I’m no fan of corporations and Steam has some enshittification in it like forced updates, but come on.
I’m not upset. I was answering that Valve hasn’t huge capital because they hoard the money.
What is Capitol if it isn’t money? You are literally saying they don’t have money because they are hoarding money.
The goal of any business is not to eat the loss, if its not important for survival. The Steam Deck is not crucial for operation of their business. Compared to consoles where its their only income (usually) and they depend on the number of sold units. Also compared to consoles, Valve is not in a position where they heavily compete on price and need to bring it down to price of competition.
In short, there is no need for Valve to eat the cost. It’s already a good price too.
Valve can take the risk on doing actual innovation because they functionally have a large pool of ‘fun money’, that does not come with a board of shareholders attached to it demanding that it constantly be put to use making next quater profits be as high as possible.
You save up that fun money fund, and when an actual good idea gets committed to, you can now actually just fund at least a moderately sized go at it.
… and, because its … you know, their money, with no shareholder or lender strings attached to it… they could fail completely, and then just eat the loss.
As opposed to now having to reorient other segments of the company to make more money to make up the difference to the board or lenders.
Sure, but we don’t know the limit of those budgets. And its not like Valve wouldn’t do innovation or try things out; otherwise there would be no improvemetns to the Steam store, no Steam Deck, no Steam Frame, no SteamOS, the controller, and they would not fund Linux projects and the FEX project, no Proton and so on. So I think its fair to say that Valve does all of that. Then to expect on top of that to lose money on selling hardware… when the hardware is already cheap and there is no need to.
Valve build products they want to use, they just happen to sell them to the rest of us aswell.