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[Panajev2001a]

So if it's a huge success at 1.5 million sold a year, then what would a failure have been?

Different markets have different expectations/ sales potential. Same reason we do not compare Switch sales with the iPhone, yeah easy win for the Apple fans waving sale numbers around but it would not be very meaningful right?

Considering the price, the novelty (not an established brand), a completely new ecosystem people did not know, Valve not known as a HW manufacturer, long HW shortages + lack of markets support + only sold through Valve online channel, etc… I think they are doing fine.

 

[Ozriel]

Funny how the sales numbers for this device has a TOTALLY different spin than the sales numbers for PSVR2 or any other VR device.

Valve’s first handheld, sold from only one storefront, with games that are playable on any decent PC and with its most popular models at $500+.

No need for spin, these are excellent sales. Dramatically different sales expectations for PSVR2

Nobody needs to spin the Quest 2 sales numbers. It’s unquestionably successful.

Why do you think that? The Steam Deck is selling at a loss.

I don’t believe the $399 version is sold at a loss.

And certainly the more popular 256gb and 512gb versions are sold at clear profits.

 

[TrebleShot]

Fantastic device and love using mine, funnily enough I use it more for remote play and xcloud than native games.
The device is so ergonomic, just nice to chill , have something on the TV and mess about in a few games. Well deservered and hope the new version which is a long way off has OLED etc.

 

[Topher]

There's no way Valve made this HW thinking it would never sell 2 million units.

Through most of last year, people had to make a reservation to get a Steam Deck. That tells me Valve was very deliberate in how many units of Steam Deck they were going to produce and they sold every one. Either way, this report is anticipating SD will past three million this year.

 

[Three]

Who thought this again?

Just before Steamdeck release I remember someone being extremely bullish about it. How switch was going to have a massive decline like Wii due to steamdeck.


Unrelated rant:
With a 1.6M installbase after 1 year I'm more concerned about the people who kept saying that developers are going to start changing their games because of this and that it was a bigger deal to min spec that allowed Series S specs to be an overpowered cakewalk for devs.

Steamdeck really isn't going to influence devs unless it gets a sizeable install base. Some of the same people saying it's going to influence development the people who would complain about how niche VR is if it sold 10M or more in a year and how devs will not support it.

 

[HTK]

Those sale numbers seem abysmal to me.

 

[Three]

and keep it at the top of the best sellers list (which is obviously a lie since most new games sell way more than that thing yet it stayed in the top 2 and is number 1 right now for some reason).

I know the top sellers list is based on revenue but i still doubt that and the valve index being that high with such low sales

What game was it above so we can do some estimates? With Steamdecks possible £570 price tag it could sell 7 times less than the best selling game at any given time and still top the chart.

 

[Topher]

Just before Steamdeck release I remember someone being extremely bullish about it. How switch was going to have a massive decline like Wii due to steamdeck.

Fair enough. I guess there are always one or two fanatics. Even Stadia had an evangelist.

 

[Azurro]

That's it? Just 1.6 million?

 

[Kupfer]

people who love it fucking love it. It completely changes their gaming habits, and overall gaming becomes more comfortable and fun for them. people who weren't gaming much lately started playing more after their Deck purchase.

100% me.

 

[lakitu1982]

I'm just praying they release a new one in a while because it really is for me my favourite thing I own. I want a new better screen, bigger stoarage and a smaller bezel is all I want. I'm sure they will delivery. Also if I could have nicer more premium buttons like what's on an Xbox or PS5 please!

 

[64bitmodels]

And you really think Valve is deliberately lying about Steam Deck's revenue placement in the top sellers? Seriously?

i do think they are sort of but not really.... putting a 400 dollar (at minimum) device up against 60 dollar games, one is definitely gonna make more revenue than the other. they should seperate it from game sales for pure honesty and just place the amount of units sold next to the deck

 

[Topher]

i do think they are sort of but not really.... putting a 400 dollar (at minimum) device up against 60 dollar games, one is definitely gonna make more revenue than the other. they should seperate it from game sales for pure honesty and just place the amount of units sold next to the deck

But it isn't "lying" in any sense really. No more so than Amazon is lying about their top sellers in video games:

Amazon Best Sellers: Best Video Games

View the best video games in Amazon Best Sellers. Browse the 100 top video games to identify the most popular games. Get useful information on what other people are buying.

www.amazon.com

As long as people understand that this revenue based then I don't think there is a problem. The top of that list is filled with free to play games as well.

 

[Ozriel]

Through most of last year, people had to make a reservation to get a Steam Deck. That tells me Valve was very deliberate in how many units of Steam Deck they were going to produce and they sold every one. Either way, this report is anticipating SD will past three million this year.

I suspect one of Valve’s biggest gains with the Deck is mainstreaming SteamOS.

This goes a long way to make them somewhat independent of Windows, and gives them a solid OS base for any future console/standalone VR plans.

i do think they are sort of but not really.... putting a 400 dollar (at minimum) device up against 60 dollar games, one is definitely gonna make more revenue than the other. they should seperate it from game sales for pure honesty and just place the amount of units sold next to the deck

They’ve always done this, though, so it’s not about the Deck. Valve Index was done the same.

It does make sense, for stuff sold on the Steam store. Any SKU that generates revenue gets sent to the revenue charts.

Easy enough for any curious person to determine what the top placed software item is.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Whoops. I dont think DroiX was happy with my post in the thread..

 

[balls of snow]

2 weeks since i got mine. Its the most versatile gaming console I ever had. It can almost do it all. Seriously, I have emulations set up, remote play apps for both ps5 and series x and my steam library.
Its very much a tinkering type of device that probably wont hit the casuals hard but hopefully with profit margins Valve will continue updating the specs of the sequels indefinitely.

 

[Bragr]

I don’t believe the $399 version is sold at a loss.

And certainly the more popular 256gb and 512gb versions are sold at clear profits.

Well, all of this is guessing, but Gabe did say that the pricing was "painful" and hinted at selling at a decent loss when they first launched and that they were in it for the "long haul" which is what people say when they lose per sale.

But, that was during the shortages, and it might be quite different now.

However, it's not likely they are making any money on these systems per console, it's all about the Steam store purchases, I also wonder if quantities mean something here, I assume it's more cost-effective to create millions and millions of systems like Nintendo or Sony does than the more low-numbers approach of the Deck.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well, all of this is guessing, but Gabe did say that the pricing was "painful" and hinted at selling at a decent loss when they first launched and that they were in it for the "long haul" which is what people say when they lose per sale.

But, that was during the shortages, and it might be quite different now.

However, it's not likely they are making any money on these systems per console, it's all about the Steam store purchases, I also wonder if quantities mean something here, I assume it's more cost-effective to create millions and millions of systems like Nintendo or Sony does than the more low-numbers approach of the Deck.

They did cut costs on the SSD moving to a cheaper and slightly slower model already right?

 

[Deerock71]

Nintendo fanboys foaming at the mouth right now... probably peeing in the carpet of happiness as well.

Ummm...if it's doing what I expected, I never thought it was going to challenge Nintendo in any way, shape, or form. Hard to get worked up about it if it's performing within expectations.

 

[Ozriel]

Well, all of this is guessing, but Gabe did say that the pricing was "painful" and hinted at selling at a decent loss when they first launched and that they were in it for the "long haul" which is what people say when they lose per sale.

But, that was during the shortages, and it might be quite different now.

However, it's not likely they are making any money on these systems per console, it's all about the Steam store purchases, I also wonder if quantities mean something here, I assume it's more cost-effective to create millions and millions of systems like Nintendo or Sony does than the more low-numbers approach of the Deck.

The ‘painful’ comment for the $399 version is most certainly because the margins are slim. Many forget that Valve usually builds in a fat margin…their Index VR headset probably has markup running in the hundreds of dollars, for example.

They’re making a killing on the 256gb and 512gb versions. Valve is essentially charging $150 for a $25 upgrade.

Want to know how the $399 Deck isn’t losing money? benchmark against the PS5. Sony sells a 36CU RDNA2 GPU + 8 core Zen 2 + Blu-ray drive + Dualsense controller + 812gb fast SSD + pricey RAM for $499 at a profit margin. Hard to believe an 8CU GPU + 4 core CPU, cheaper cooling, cheap eMMC and a display is less than $100 cheaper.

 

[Bragr]

The ‘painful’ comment for the $399 version is most certainly because the margins are slim. Many forget that Valve usually builds in a fat margin…their Index VR headset probably has markup running in the hundreds of dollars, for example.

They’re making a killing on the 256gb and 512gb versions. Valve is essentially charging $150 for a $25 upgrade.

Want to know how the $399 Deck isn’t losing money? benchmark against the PS5. Sony sells a 36CU RDNA2 GPU + 8 core Zen 2 + Blu-ray drive + Dualsense controller + 812gb fast SSD + pricey RAM for $499 at a profit margin. Hard to believe an 8CU GPU + 4 core CPU, cheaper cooling, cheap eMMC and a display is less than $100 cheaper.

Maybe, but a console and a handheld is a different thing entirely, and the PS5 didn't sell at a profit right away. I can guarantee you that Sony gets parts cheaper at the scale that they are manufacturing.

 

[Teletraan1]

Gaming on Linux is getting better and better, but the reason SteamOS is working so much better in SteamDeck is not that there has been some groundbreaking achievement in Wine/Proton/SteamOS (sure there has been some of that too), but that SteamDeck is a single device where Valve is in control of the HW design (semi-custom AMD SoC) and they can tailor and optimise the software stack around it (and give developers an easy way to get brownie points from people with Steam Deck verification). This made the job easier for Valve and the community around Steam too.

The fact Windows works at all and works decently enough is something hard MS should be praised for as they have a near next to impossible problem at hand (they do have market share and influence that will force HW bee does and developers to bend towards Windows and improve support / walking through workarounds).

I am not going to praise a company that has a virtual monopoly on OS and everything geared in their favor to remain as one. I don't like them as a company and would prefer to not support them with dollars for OS. The nuts and bolts of how and why I will leave up to someone else. All I was hoping for was that going forward they can expand the improvements that they made for the steam deck to a wider range of hardware. Also its very existence puts into the minds of developers that this has to run on SteamOS and do what they would do with Windows workarounds. I also think you are underselling the updates to wine/proton since you can install newer versions of Proton and change nothing else which massively increases the compatibility or improves performance of games.

 

[JCK75]

It would be impossible to get Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo numbers the way Valve is going about this..
it will never be under a kids christmas tree until mom/grandma can walk into a walmart and purchase it.

that considered those are fantastic numbers.

 

[CompetitionPro]

Pretty impressive! Thumbs up @ Valve

 

[EverydayBeast]

Steam deck is an interesting concept I wonder if a steam deck console would be successful, because switches sell like crazy.

 

[tmlDan]

What game was it above so we can do some estimates? With Steamdecks possible £570 price tag it could sell 7 times less than the best selling game at any given time and still top the chart.

it's almost always above every game, but i also mentioned the VR headset, no way that thing is selling at all at this point and is top 5

 

[tr1p1ex]

Wii U still has nothing to fear.

 

[mckmas8808]

Valve’s first handheld, sold from only one storefront, with games that are playable on any decent PC and with its most popular models at $500+.

No need for spin, these are excellent sales. Dramatically different sales expectations for PSVR2

Nobody needs to spin the Quest 2 sales numbers. It’s unquestionably successful.

The bolded is really silly and stupid to me. There's no reason for us to believe that the PSVR2 needs to sell anything more than what the SteamDeck is currently selling at the moment. It's been stated that Valve is selling this at a loss. I'm not personally sure how true that is. But either way, there's no reason to believe that a VR headset needs to do Xbox console sale numbers, whereas the SteamDeck is great at 1.6 million per year.

That's WAY too extreme if you actually believe that.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Go go linux gaming!

 

[KormaChameleon]

Considering Valve does little to no advertising on the Deck. Rely on free marketing from Tech Tubers and hardcore Steam users. That's impressive numbers for hardware in my opinon.

 

[Minsc]

The bolded is really silly and stupid to me. There's no reason for us to believe that the PSVR2 needs to sell anything more than what the SteamDeck is currently selling at the moment. It's been stated that Valve is selling this at a loss. I'm not personally sure how true that is. But either way, there's no reason to believe that a VR headset needs to do Xbox console sale numbers, whereas the SteamDeck is great at 1.6 million per year.

That's WAY too extreme if you actually believe that.

I guess the difference is some people expect billion dollar AAA exclusives to be released on VR systems by the dozens, so without a userbase in the 100s of millions it'd be a hard pitch.

Meanwhile Steam Deck does not need exclusive games to be successful and see AAA support.

I'm personally happy with just hybrid VR exclusives, because in VR they honestly are new games, at least new experiences. But some people want two dozen Alyx's a year to be released and "only then" would they want to get in to VR, but in reality they most likely don't want to even then and have 100 other reasons it needs fixing first.

 

[Lasha]

I would have assumed Valve sold more units based on how often the deck is brought up here and everywhere. 1.6 million is a respectable number for what appears to have been a staggered release.

 

[crazyjah2003]

Was really interest in getting one as I love portables... not sure why.. I tend to put in insane hours in the likes of Skyrim or FF12 just because they are on Switch...


My impression from what I have heard on GAF is that it should be called the Steam10Deck.... 10 for 10 fps on modern games... hue hue hue.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Question for those that own one...

If you play a lot of FPS and TPS (use both sticks) how good does it feel relative to the XBox pad, Dualsense, and Switch?

 

[yet_another_alt]

Question for those that own one...

If you play a lot of FPS and TPS (use both sticks) how good does it feel relative to the XBox pad, Dualsense, and Switch?

Outside of preferring Dualshock button prompts, I've never really had a problem switching between different modern controllers. You've used one, you've used them all. It might throw you off how the sticks and buttons are aligned laterally instead of diagonally but that kind of discomfort shouldn't last long.

 

[Tams]

The thing that annoys me, is how this reinforces the original statement by valve, how the steamdeck was not a console and was going to be updated more often, (more like a laptop).

Sadly valves recent comments have shown a change in mindset, though I have no idea why when the sales are not even close to console-like so why relegate it to console-like hardware updates?

Give me a OLED + new SoC Steamdeck already.

Well, the thing is, Valve are heavily subsidising Steam Decks, just like Sony and Microsoft do, and Nintendo has done before.

They can't financially justify (I wouldn't say can't afford), more regular hardware updates. The Steam Deck is a tool to drive profits, but is not the direct cause of them.

The other companies making handheld gaming PCs are the opposite. They need new hardware to make money. The hardware is their only source of profit.

 

[Crayon]

One thing that I hope gets pushed going forward is perhaps a proper SteamOS for desktops where every game just works. I would like to get off of Windows. I only really use my PC for gaming and some light web browsing and media applications. Deliver that and MS can eat my ass.

Linux keeps getting better and there's no need to wait for valve. I've recently been using a distro called Nobara headed up by Glorious Eggroll of Proton-GE fame. It's got all your game software and optimizations rolled in. I like it except he keeps fucking around with that yum-extender that never works right. Anyway, I know a lot of people are waiting for the desktop release of steamos. I think it will be worth the wait if someone has never tried linux before. Possibly a perfect starting point.

 

[Tams]

except he keeps fucking around with that yum-extender that never works right

And this here is a prime example of why there may never be a 'year of Linux on the desktop'.

 

[Crayon]

And this here is a prime example of why there may never be a 'year of Linux on the desktop'.

 

[Tams]

If you're not compiling it yourself then you don't deserve to use Linux!

 

[Ritsumei2020]

Another 10 millions and they’ll catch up to the WiiU

 

[mckmas8808]

I guess the difference is some people expect billion dollar AAA exclusives to be released on VR systems by the dozens, so without a userbase in the 100s of millions it'd be a hard pitch.

Meanwhile Steam Deck does not need exclusive games to be successful and see AAA support.

I'm personally happy with just hybrid VR exclusives, because in VR they honestly are new games, at least new experiences. But some people want two dozen Alyx's a year to be released and "only then" would they want to get in to VR, but in reality they most likely don't want to even then and have 100 other reasons it needs fixing first.

The bolded is obviously the answer to AAA VR games. And like you, it'll be great for me too. I just wish more people could be honest and just say they hate VR in general and be done with it. These Steamdeck numbers are good for what it is. But it's not some great explosion of greatness that some are making it out to be.

It's just solid good sales.

 

[Thirty7ven]

As niche as niche gets.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Congrats to them. Seems like a very cool product. I wish I had the income to get one, but I’m cool with just streaming and remote play on my phone.

 

[Ozriel]

The bolded is really silly and stupid to me. There's no reason for us to believe that the PSVR2 needs to sell anything more than what the SteamDeck is currently selling at the moment. It's been stated that Valve is selling this at a loss. I'm not personally sure how true that is. But either way, there's no reason to believe that a VR headset needs to do Xbox console sale numbers, whereas the SteamDeck is great at 1.6 million per year.

That's WAY too extreme if you actually believe that.

What a weird post.

Nobody expects the PSVR2 to sell successful mainstream console numbers.

There was legitimate expectation that PSVR2 sells better than its much more limited and lower tech predecessor, especially now they’re selling to a much bigger market, with the Quest hardware doing the heavy lifting to bring VR away more mainstream than it was back when the original PSVR launched.

 

[Azelover]

Fair enough. I guess there are always one or two fanatics. Even Stadia had an evangelist.

I'm not an evangelist but I took the Steam Deck seriously. Seemed like a good product at a decent price. I'm not gonna lie, I'm fairly disappointed with these numbers.

I was extremely negative towards the iOS App Store back in 2008. And it was pretty huge. So I have learned not to underestimate things. I even gave Stadia a chance.

 

[Topher]

I'm not an evangelist but I took the Steam Deck seriously. Seemed like a good product at a decent price. I'm not gonna lie, I'm fairly disappointed with these numbers.

I was extremely negative towards the iOS App Store back in 2008. And it was pretty huge. So I have learned not to underestimate things. I even gave Stadia a chance.

Nothing wrong with thinking something is going to be bigger than it turned out to be. I've done that plenty of times myself. I think it would be quite a stretch for anyone to think Steam Deck was going to "destroy" Nintendo Switch though. Not saying you thought that, but those are the people we are talking about.

 

[mckmas8808]

What a weird post.

Nobody expects the PSVR2 to sell successful mainstream console numbers.

There was legitimate expectation that PSVR2 sells better than its much more limited and lower tech predecessor, especially now they’re selling to a much bigger market, with the Quest hardware doing the heavy lifting to bring VR away more mainstream than it was back when the original PSVR launched.

Care to explain why people went nuts with the 300,000 PSVR2 units sold in the first month story then? Everyone said that was a horrible amount sold for the first 30 days.

 

[Ozriel]

Care to explain why people went nuts with the 300,000 PSVR2 units sold in the first month story then? Everyone said that was a horrible amount sold for the first 30 days.

Probably because that doesn’t seem any better than the original PSVR?

 

[Torrent of Pork]

Honest question for PC gamers who also own a SD, if all I really want this thing for is a 1080p/60fps machine will this do the job for at least the next 3 years with new releases? I have a Series X hooked up to my 4k tv for the big games, but want this for the games that don't hit the Xbox, and all the other reasons you want to be on PC for older titles. Portability is cool, but I expect it to spend most of the time docked to a 1080p monitor with m/kb.

Is this a good deal for someone that isn't super hard to please graphics-wise?