> Apple managed to become the most valuable company in the world without ads.
Yeah, but what about next quarter?
Jokes aside, they're not the most valuable company anymore. Nvidia is ahead, I think MS has jockeyed with them on that position a few times and is still on their heels, and Google is ascendant (even ahead of MS as of end of close) after the antitrust clouds started to recede and Gemini started to match Claude and ChatGPT.
They can't sit idly forever if they want to please shareholders, and there aren't many avenues for expansion.
Don't you worry - there are many, many ways for GPUs to inject ads :)
Of course you'll first have to dismiss the ad injected by your monitor manufacturer, but before that you'll have to dismiss the ad injected by your mouse manufacturer (or keyboard if you prefer that). Whoops, looks like your OS ads refreshed - drink another verification can! Just in time for your ISP to inject ads. But to dismiss them, first you have to dismiss the ad injected by your mouse manufacturer.
Oh look, another GPU ad! I feel lucky that all these companies want to provide me with the best information about new products and services.
HPC is still only a portion of the overall datacenter market. Nvidia is well-equipped to tackle the networking and cheap RISC VPS portions if they set their mind to it.
Apple was the first $1T company, the first $2T company, and the first $3T company. Okay, they weren't the first $4T company, but also Nvidia is an admittedly freak situation and isn't in direct competition with Apple.
Point being, why fuck with a strategy that is working? Is being #1 so important that you'll throw it all away because of an unpredictable and outlier event that isn't in competition with you? That seems incredibly irrational and a great way to lost your market advantage. It is incredibly myopic.
1. Do you think that inaccuracy undercuts the point? If so, I'll correct the article; if not, I'll include it as a note in my planned follow-up.
2. Do you have the link(s) handy for those figures? If not, I can try to find them myself, but I figured it would be easier to ask first.
If you Google you'll find links of varying quality. Direct statements from Sony, but Nintendo and Microsoft not so much. It's all third party analysis which I find compelling.
Does your analysis still hold if the Steam Box base model sells for $600? Analysts estimated the BOM at $425 - $450. Add a little bit for RAM inflation, and Valve can still sell for $600 and technically be selling without subsidies as promised. They also promised to price it "like a PC". Lots of PC's sell for $300, so that also doesn't really constrain them.
I don't think your analysis depends on the Steam Box selling for higher than $600, but you're a better judge of that than I am.
The "in reverse" framing was largely in reference to the fact that Apple built the software ecosystem after getting loyal hardware consumers, whereas Valve got loyal software users first and is now selling hardware to them.
Otherwise, I do think a lot of what you say is true, and some of it is in the article (e.g. the software "just works").
>> that this is actually Steam Machine 2.0. Valve already tried this a decade ago, and it flopped.
> I find this framing to be beyond maddening [...]
> It was also a thoughtful partnering with hardware vendors
As numerous post-mortems (some of which I quoted in the article) recount, the hardware partners themselves largely consider their experiment back then a flop as well.
> But it was a thoughtful, intelligent long-term commitment to an ecosystem
With respect, I think you're overselling it. It's hard to call a machine that basically didn't play any of the at-the-time hits well "a thoughtful, intelligent" move. If you read some of those linked post-mortems, I think you might agree as well.
> I think it's best understood as a return on investment that begun those many years ago
I think there's nuance here, which is that Valve made lemonade from the lemon that was the flop of the Steam Box. They turned that failed move into an initial investment through diligence and effort. In a sense, that's part of what I'm trying to bring attention to -- Valve didn't just write off the failure and abandon the market, but took signal from it and tried again.
Fair point on the vendors - surely they hoped to make $$ from it. But I think you're underestimating the significance of standing up Proton and the critical experience working through bugs and getting experience with hardware, and gradually growing the inventory of compatible games. Simply put, there's no Steam Deck without the Steam Machine, which says everything about the value of the Steam Machine.
> But I think your underestimating the significance of standing up Proton
I don't think I'm underestimating it at all. Proton and SteamOS were huge, they were extremely well-timed, and they've been a boon for everyone involved (except M$ shareholders, I guess).
However, none of that necessitated whatever the Steam Box release was. It's not like it moved a significant number of units and that's why Valve invested in Proton/SteamOS; Steam Box was long discontinued before the first public release of Proton (2018, IIRC).
> Simply put, there's no Steam Deck without the Steam Machine
Agreed, and I call that out in the article, but that doesn't make its original release not a flop. Hence my lemonade comment -- you don't make lemonade from apples; you have to have a lemon first.
>It's hard to call a machine that basically didn't play any of the at-the-time hits well "a thoughtful, intelligent" move.
And on the other hand you're saying:
>I don't think I'm underestimating it at all. Proton and SteamOS were huge, they were extremely well-timed, and they've been a boon for everyone involved
If you were actually acknowledging that it would have showed up in your definition of success, but it doesn't, despite it being the most important thing.
I think there is something to be said for companies putting their money where their mouth is. Getting behind Gaming on Linux with a hardware launch is pretty substantial and Valve have been explicit since 2013 that they think it's the way forward.
They also continue to have first class support for BOTH windows and Linux without forcing it down anyone's throat which is not the strategy for literally every tangent related market.
There are no super annoying layers to this strategy
Valve could have done a number of things to force users to use Linux such as.
- Linux game exclusives and Linux discounts.
- Preventing the steam machine from running on a windows machine by dropping certain hardware
- Making windows users second class by not releasing the latest updates and features.
- Making other hardware incompatible with windows e.g. Valve Index, Steam Controller etc
> I always laugh when a media outlet uses ProtonDB as an example
I'm not a media outlet! Just some dope who noticed a thing and wanted to get the thought that wouldn't leave out into the world so I could use my brain for other things.
> as the reality is something different
That's fair. My anecdotal experience (as outlined in another comment) is that platinum has generally just worked for me. That's probably because I'm on Steam Deck rather than a "generic" Linux install (I also use Windows for my desktop gaming).
That said, do you think a parenthetical note is necessary for accuracy? I figured it might be getting too into the weeds since the article is primarily about the platform/ecosystem/hardware comparison between Apple and Valve...
I'm happy to edit to correct, but my own experience on Steam Deck has been that anything that's platinum (or native, but that goes without saying) basically just works, minor UI issues and the like notwithstanding. Considering that even Windows versions can have those kinds of issues depending on drivers and hardware, I figured it was a fair comparison.
> Well, Valve got seriously concerned about the Windows Store, like, a decade ago...
Yeah, I briefly addressed that concern in the article as a comparison to Facebook; probably could've expanded on it, but it was already quite long and didn't feel like it fit naturally into the topic at hand
That wasn't meant as a criticism, more like some additional context. With how irrelevant the Microsoft Store is these days, I can't blame anyone for skipping over it...
You also have to consider the market value of their reputations jointly as well. It would have to be a huge incentive to risk their reputation, both apples with their security conscious customers and customers with high regulatory burden, and the auditor whose only asset of value is their reputation. Auditors typically poof out of existence (Anderson anyone?)
Yeah, but what about next quarter?
Jokes aside, they're not the most valuable company anymore. Nvidia is ahead, I think MS has jockeyed with them on that position a few times and is still on their heels, and Google is ascendant (even ahead of MS as of end of close) after the antitrust clouds started to recede and Gemini started to match Claude and ChatGPT.
They can't sit idly forever if they want to please shareholders, and there aren't many avenues for expansion.
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