Right after the Steam Deck was announced, Valve CEO Gabe Newell was interviewed by IGN. During the conversation, he spoke about the “aggressive” policy on the price of the device and stated that the set-top box will sell “millions of units” if done correctly.
According to the Valve chief, the right balance between cost and performance “will be one of the critical factors [for success] in the mobile space.” This is why Valve has been “very aggressive” on the pricing issue. However, Gabe Newell emphasized that for the company, performance was still in the first place: “I want to take this [the console] and say,“ Oh, it works, it is fast. ”After that, the issue of price was secondary and painful. But it was quite an obvious critical [important] aspect. Performance and experience came first, [that] was the biggest and most fundamental constraint that drove us.”
Gabe Newell then talked about the ambition to implement the Steam Deck: “We believe that if we do it right, we will sell it in the millions, and this will clearly lead to a product category where we and other PC developers can shine. And this will have long-term prospects for us. It is within such a framework that we think about it.”
Steam Deck sales will begin this December in the US, Canada, EU and UK. In other countries, the console will appear in 2022.
