[pjerem]

I mean, the thing is literally tied (by default but few people are changing that) to the biggest video game selling platform of the planet. Actually given how Valve prints money without doing anything, I'm impressed they don't sell it for 99.99, they would immediately kill Nintendo and Sony (Xbox doesn't need that).

[rtkwe]

The big question becomes, does a Steam Deck owner buy enough more to make up the subsidy or do they buy about the same as they would have without buying the Deck? For consoles there's little question because the console maker gets a cut of every single sale and it would be REALLY weird to only play previous generation games on a console so that math is easier but for Steam they're looking at people buying it as a secondary device (mostly) as an augment to their existing PC(s).

I also think Valve has/had enough demand at the non fully subsidized price there wasn't much point in selling it for less. They could already sell as many as they wanted to make at the $600+ price point so why subsidize if farther and leave money on the table? That has changed now that they're having to jack the prices up but I think they also just don't want to get into that model and would rather have an ecosystem of healthy competitors they sell games onto.