Maybe if they gave percent-off coupons, but otherwise it’s definitely not. The big console companies subsidize consoles because they know people are going to buy games for that system, probably on their digital storefront, and thus they’re going to earn that subsidy back in the profits from those sales. Even if people buy physical copies, the licensing fees come back to the console manufacturers.
But with Steam credits, that’d just be loss on the other end.
No even strait credits would be fine. Let’s game it out:
PlayStation sells a console for x-y dollars where x real cost of console and y is subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is z. Therefore total profit is x-y+z.
Steam sells Gabe cube for x dollars where x is real cost of console and issue y dollars of credits as subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is thus z-y dollars. Therefore total profit is x+z-y this is identical to that of PlayStation.
They can still do subsidisation without requiring the PlayStation/Xbox lockin as the credits limit subsidisation to steam ecosystem.
There’s no z in the Valve equation, though, because they’re not locking you in to their ecosystem on the device.
You’re right about Sony: They sell a console for x (cost of console) - y (subsidy) + z (profit from Playstation games). They’ve calculated that z is going to be significantly more than y over the life of the console, on average. Nearly every game anyone ever plays on a Playstation will involve some amount of money going to Sony. You can’t really do anything else with it.
But with Valve, if they sell a console for x (cost of console) - y (game voucher), there’s no guarantee of any z (profit from Steam games). A ton of people could (and probably will) buy games from third-party stores, or only use the Steam Machine for retro gaming, or pirated games, or as a media console, or have already-existing Steam libraries. A lot of people would use that voucher and never buy anything else on Steam, or only buy a few games on Steam sales. Only a fraction of games ever bought will go to Valve because it’s not a locked-down console.
They could give you steam credits with the purchase essentially the same outcome
Maybe if they gave percent-off coupons, but otherwise it’s definitely not. The big console companies subsidize consoles because they know people are going to buy games for that system, probably on their digital storefront, and thus they’re going to earn that subsidy back in the profits from those sales. Even if people buy physical copies, the licensing fees come back to the console manufacturers.
But with Steam credits, that’d just be loss on the other end.
No even strait credits would be fine. Let’s game it out: PlayStation sells a console for x-y dollars where x real cost of console and y is subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is z. Therefore total profit is x-y+z. Steam sells Gabe cube for x dollars where x is real cost of console and issue y dollars of credits as subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is thus z-y dollars. Therefore total profit is x+z-y this is identical to that of PlayStation.
They can still do subsidisation without requiring the PlayStation/Xbox lockin as the credits limit subsidisation to steam ecosystem.
There’s no z in the Valve equation, though, because they’re not locking you in to their ecosystem on the device.
You’re right about Sony: They sell a console for x (cost of console) - y (subsidy) + z (profit from Playstation games). They’ve calculated that z is going to be significantly more than y over the life of the console, on average. Nearly every game anyone ever plays on a Playstation will involve some amount of money going to Sony. You can’t really do anything else with it.
But with Valve, if they sell a console for x (cost of console) - y (game voucher), there’s no guarantee of any z (profit from Steam games). A ton of people could (and probably will) buy games from third-party stores, or only use the Steam Machine for retro gaming, or pirated games, or as a media console, or have already-existing Steam libraries. A lot of people would use that voucher and never buy anything else on Steam, or only buy a few games on Steam sales. Only a fraction of games ever bought will go to Valve because it’s not a locked-down console.