13 points ·
Their goal with the first iteration of Steam Machines (RIP) was *explicitly* to provide an alternative to Windows and to reduce dependency on Microsoft. I'm pretty sure that's why they priced the deck so competitively, to make a dent in the market as a loss leader.
To that end, I would expect them to be taking a large hit on these in order to get them into people's hands. It's not even about steam sales per se, it's about platform commoditisation.