Gabe Newell on the Steam Deck price tag: "It's painful for us, but it's not that important"
Yesterday, Valve announced its portable Steam Deck console. Its cheapest version will be $50 more expensive than the new Nintendo Switch OLED. However, Gabe Newell believes that this is still a “painfully” low price tag.
Source: IGN
In an interview with IGN, the head of Valve said that his team had to be very aggressive with the price of the Steam Deck.
It’s all about long-term plans: Valve has decided to launch a new market segment that will be profitable for a long time.
Many inflate the prices of goods and this kills the chance of success. People become uninterested from the very beginning. We are here for a long time and we want to achieve more.
Co-founder of Valve
According to Newell, the profit from sales was not as important for Valve as the quality of the console, which is why the company decided on a “painful” price tag for itself. The company focused on making Steam Deck powerful and user-friendly for gamers.
Gable noted that if Valve does everything right, it will sell millions of copies of the console in the future.
Steam Deck will be available at three prices: $399, $599 and $649. Its cost depends on the amount of internal memory: 64 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB. The console will be on sale in December 2021, but only in the USA, Canada, the European Union and the UK.
Last week it also became known that Nintendo is preparing to release the Nintendo Switch OLED — an updated version of its portable console. Despite the fact that its price tag is lower than that of the Steam Deck ($350), it will be sold as a plus.
