Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

boilingsteam.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 86 posts

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#41

Post by paxys »

haburka wrote: post #9

I think people really underestimate the brand loyalty that valve has. They have consistently shown for 25+ years to strive for quality and I know I’m unlikely to get a headache if I purchase from them. Their hardware is really top notch, I have used a steam deck LCD for years and it was not until very recently that I had a single issue with a button that was easily fixable. Probably the purchases went down due to som…

The purchases went down because people can't afford a mid-tier gaming handheld priced like a high end AAA PC.

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#42

Post by idiotsecant »

pipes wrote: post #27
datakan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally find Valve's software quality subpar but their ethics to be vastly superior to anyone else's. For that reason they are the only place I'll even look for games anymore. They aren't perfect but they at least don't hate me like Epic does.

I used to agree with this sentiment. But now I think they engage in some nasty practices, like not allowing developers to list their games on other online stores at cheaper prices. That and they take a large cut (30 percent I think) Vs epic store at 12 percent as far as I can recall. I mostly buy from gog because they give your the download to keep for life. Also I just like them. However getting their games to work…

The epic store is hot trash, as evidenced by the fact that they pay devs massive amounts of money for timed exclusives and people still don't use it

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#43

Post by [deleted] »

stonedivot wrote: post #21
datakan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally find Valve's software quality subpar but their ethics to be vastly superior to anyone else's. For that reason they are the only place I'll even look for games anymore. They aren't perfect but they at least don't hate me like Epic does.

What Valve software have you used that is subpar? It must be a lot of it since you said you "generally" find this to be true.

[deleted]

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#44

Post by ekianjo »

haburka wrote: post #9

I think people really underestimate the brand loyalty that valve has. They have consistently shown for 25+ years to strive for quality and I know I’m unlikely to get a headache if I purchase from them. Their hardware is really top notch, I have used a steam deck LCD for years and it was not until very recently that I had a single issue with a button that was easily fixable. Probably the purchases went down due to som…

> Their hardware is really top notch

Agree with the sentiment but let's not forget the awful fan noise issue impacting many users at launch.

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#46

Post by Wowfunhappy »

nottorp wrote: post #4

But will Nintendo and the like be able to retain pricing for much longer? Of course they have better contracts but for how long?

Nintendo has already raised the price of the Switch and has announced plans to raise it more, but it's still cheaper because the hardware is worse.

I feel like Nintendo is actually really well positioned for these component price increases, because now they benefit from having the weakest hardware. There is only so much most consumers are willing to pay for a gaming console, and now the Switch may be the only one in that price range.

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#47

Post by idiotsecant »

datakan wrote: post #25
stonedivot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Valve software have you used that is subpar? It must be a lot of it since you said you "generally" find this to be true.

The Steam client for starters but pretty much every game they initially released since 1997 was extremely buggy. They also struggle very hard to even release much anymore. I'll give them kudos on supporting OSS and their Proton development.

this is peak cs era opinion, valve puts out extremely high quality real software now, just none of it is games.

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#48

Post by the_doctah »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #33
JKCalhoun wrote: post #10

If competitors are not raising prices dramatically, then they're eating that loss. Steam should follow suit—at least with something like a loss-leader model. When I rewrote/released an old shareware game to Steam some years ago I made just enough money to buy a Steam Deck. Since then OLED Decks came out and I'm jealous. (With the prices of the new Steam Decks, I'm wondering now if there is instead a way to retrofit m…

Yep. I love valve but let’s not forget that they are making 17+ BILLION dollars a year, 50+ million per employee. Gabe seems like a pretty good guy but he bought a $70m mansion and builds yachts as a side business… If they want to increase or keep market share they need to eat costs somewhere in this. Maybe they are positioned to do that soon if they anticipate another doubling of ram prices like Microsoft does, we c…

>Gabe seems like a pretty good guy but he bought a $70m mansion and builds yachts as a side business…

As if that was a counterexample to him being a good guy? Who cares what he buys. It's his money and its legal. The "billionaire bad" brainwashing needs to stop.

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#49

Post by jammaloo »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #10

If competitors are not raising prices dramatically, then they're eating that loss. Steam should follow suit—at least with something like a loss-leader model. When I rewrote/released an old shareware game to Steam some years ago I made just enough money to buy a Steam Deck. Since then OLED Decks came out and I'm jealous. (With the prices of the new Steam Decks, I'm wondering now if there is instead a way to retrofit m…

Loss leaders only work if they can make the customer spend money to make up for that loss. Commodity hardware can't be sold as a loss leader, because companies will just buy it up at the discount, and then not use it for gaming.

An example of this was the PS3, being able to run linux. The US Air Force bought ~1700 PS3s, and built a supercomputer. At launch, the PS3 reportedly lost Sony about $300 per console sold, so that one example alone could have cost a half million dollars.

Re: The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: How the New Pricing Decreased Demand by 80%

#50

Post by pjerem »

stonedivot wrote: post #21
datakan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally find Valve's software quality subpar but their ethics to be vastly superior to anyone else's. For that reason they are the only place I'll even look for games anymore. They aren't perfect but they at least don't hate me like Epic does.

What Valve software have you used that is subpar? It must be a lot of it since you said you "generally" find this to be true.

Steam client is pretty bad. It's slow, full of ads, inconsistent, complex ... Its only quality is that everything else is worse and that it have an interesting ecosystem and ok tier customer policies (but that's unrelated to the software).

The thing takes several seconds to start on my brand new gaming rig. Not insufferable but given its only usefulness is to list my games and start one, that's a lot.

Post reply on HN