Can everyone please stop claiming and speculating that Valve’s new hardware will be loss leaders? If you watch LTT and Gamers Nexus’s first videos on the announcement, they actually spoke with Valve’s engineers. And the Valve representatives already said that the new hardware WILL NOT BE LOSS LEADERS.
There isn’t even evidence that the Steam Deck was a loss leader. All GabeN said was that the lowest cost launch model was priced “painfully”, which doesn’t necessarily mean it was sold at a loss, it could easily have been sold at a very tight margin.
And no, low margins does not meet the definition of a loss leader. A loss leader is a product sold below cost, in that every unit sold actually costs the seller money.
I get the desire to speculate on new hardware. It’s fun and it helps pass the time until we hear more info from Valve. But there’s limits to what is reasonable. Valve has already stated that the new hardware won’t be loss leaders, so hoping and/or claiming they are isn’t reasonable.
Sorry for the rant, but all of the comments that seem to have only skimmed headlines are quickly getting to me
A product sold at a loss/very attractive price to attract customers. The idea is that they customers will come due to the cheap price of a desirable product and buy additional other stuff at the store, which should hopefully make up for the loss.
E.g. a restaurant advertise cheap burgers to attract customers, and then make the profit on alcoholic beverages that customers buy alongside the cheap burger.
So the Razor and blades model (printers) but in games?
From the second sentence on the page:
So the Razor and blades model would probably be the more accurate term for what people thought the new steam hardwate would be, yeah.
Though steam won’t lock you to their services.