• jeeva@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Because console manufacturers can rely on their customers buying stuff at their store.

    • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      The game store that has so much of the PC market that people call it a monopoly can’t?

      That doesn’t make any sense.

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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        5 days ago

        If it’s sold at a loss, then you would get companies buying them in the thousands and installing Windows for office use.

        Remember the old story with the US military using PS3s as a supercomputer because they were sold at a loss and so were the best value for getting lots of compute? That’s what you get, except with the Steam Machine using it for something else is just straight up a supported use case.

        • MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip
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          5 days ago

          Yeah, I see your point. To paraphrase, it says that they have to make a profit and can’t guarantee game sales from their own store to offset any potential subsidisation.

          My point is that Gaben/Valve have billions and don’t need the profit from it. So what if some people use it to play games from other stores? They’ll be in the minority for sure.

          I guess everyone is too capitalism-brained to see past the profit motive.

          • jeeva@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            I’m not sure you do see my point.

            To be clear, nowhere in that article suggests that valve would be making a profit on the current price, or that they “have to make a profit” - just that they would not sell it under cost.

            I’m genuinely confused how that becomes “profit motive”, or shows greed.