This just looks like they want to see how much ram prices soar so they can see how much they can ask for the thing

Charging more to cover their costs is NOT the same thing as maliciously price gouging (which is what was alluded to here).

If the cost of materials goes up, the cost of the device goes up. They’re a business not a charity. I think we both fully agree that they are waiting to see where prices land closer to launch to determine the final pricing of the device. But I don’t agree that they’re optimizing for profit. They already know what margin they expect from this device and might even be planning on eating some margin to keep the price competitive.

The Steamdeck, pre-RAMpocalypse, was maybe one of the best values in gaming hardware, in part because they were subsidizing the price like Sony and Microsoft do for home consoles. Any other handheld PC on the market was 2-3x the price. They can’t be expecting that same kind of sales volume from the Steam Machine, so the amount they can afford to subsidize will be lower for sure.

Of all companies, I think Valve deserves the benefit of the doubt. You’re ascribing business practices to Valve that I have no memory of them using.

Sure, even if it has never turned downwards - then constantly rising prices still makes the point.

It’s only suspicious if you haven’t been watching the wildly swinging RAM pricing. It would be a far worse experience for Steam and for the consumer if they set a price and had to keep jacking it up before the product had even been released.

I’ll bet you that Walmart is selfinsured, and this absolutely hits them directly.

Yeah, thanks - that must have been it. I read their post with the inference I took from the title in my head and didn’t re-examine it after reading their message. And they didn’t say anything like “it’s been a great 8 years” like a lot of similar posts might to dispel it.

I mystified what it was that I read in that post that made me think that they only lasted a month to begin with, before announcing they were shutting down in a month. And even more confusing that I’ve literally never heard of them, that seemed reasonable when I thought they were a month old.

Some people are going to get screwed pretty hard here then, if they’ve been buying games there for years. Pretty horrific management of the situation if they can’t work out a deal with steam to save people’s games.

How could their costs be high enough that they can’t survive more than ONE month after launch? But we all dodged the bullet I guess, can you imagine this happening a year in when people actually had a chance to buy multiple games from them? What a pitiful response. It’ll be harder for anybody to enter the market when things like this happen.

Don’t be a pendant, you know what they fucking meant.

Edit: actually, it’s not even pedantic, it’s just wrong. Before the internet existed, there was never an internet shutdown.

Software decoding has clearly been sufficient.

I’m using a 15 year old i5 and a GTX 970, having no issues with AV1 video. Curious what hardware you’re running.

Not from THEMSELVES, never from themselves.

I will concede that the YouTube Music app started (and might still be) worse than GPM was in the end. But I’m not sure it could be considered enshittification. Yeah, the YTM app itself was kinda shit, especially at first - but they didn’t make the service materially worse and charge more for features they took away. They didn’t jack up the price to coincide with the “new” service, they just consolidated the two separate services into one. They didn’t introduce ads. They didn’t silently take down a ton of the music offered and leave the price the same - they still have the same 100M tracks as the other guys, and you ONLY get music from those other services.

I agree and get where you’re coming from on this example - but I think people use the term enshittification more broadly than it’s actual definition, and in my opinion this doesn’t fit.

I’ll never understand why people are proud to waste their life watching ads. Or are proud to use adblock and steal the content being posted by small creators. You’re really sticking it to the little guy, great job.

So you refuse to pay because they MIGHT do something bad? That’s a pretty weak argument. You’re taking a stand against… What? You were never a paying customer in the first place, and they have not enshitified YouTube Premium in the over 10 years I’ve had it. In fact, I still pay a grandfathered $8/mo for my account - which is grace I was never given by Hulu or Netflix as they repeatedly jacked up the price over that same timespan. Seems to me they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt.

I set up service in a new state last year with Comcast and was shocked that there was NOT a rental fee for the router/modem any longer. But idk if that’s them being forced to compete more than they had to in my previous area, or if they cut the fee across the board.

One time as a kid, I got myself in trouble and I got TV taken away from me - my dad came up to my room with a pair of scissors and just cut my coax cable. I stripped that bad boy and shoved the end back in to my TV, worked a treat. I also had my wifi antenna from my desktop taken from me at some point, so I took a paper clip and stuck it in there - not GREAT reception, but it was good enough!

Love this. If the dev needs a license to play it, Steam needs a license to sell it, is it really much different for them to then sue owners for not purchasing a license to listen?

This whole thing is utter bullshit. It sounds like the game studios DO have a license, and they’re claiming that Steam does not but should. Because you can’t tell me that Microslop, EA, and Rockstar, three ENORMOUS giants in the gaming industry, have willingly opened themselves up to litigation by not licensing music in their games, something they’ve been making for decades. Why are they entitled to a license from the developer AND a license from the shop selling it? Of course, they’re not, but let’s hope this doesn’t set precedent that says they are.

Yeah, Verbatim still remains… For now.

Oh that’s right - I forgot that the drives were slowly going disco too. Bleak indeed.