I just want people to be aware of the following facts:
- Microsoft, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, killed the Kinect even though it sold over 30 million units.
- Sony scrapped the entire PSP line despite selling almost 100 million units across all of its iterations.
- VALVe is 0 - 4 on the hardware department.
- The Steam Deck is more expensive than the previously mentioned companie's devices.
History is not on VALVe's side.
The Kinect was a gimmick accessory. Not really a fair comparison.
And Sony scrapped their portable division after the Vita sold like 10-15% of what the PSP sold.
I'm not sure where the 0-4 number is coming from. The Steam Link failed. Steam Machines failed. The Steam Controller was a success though.
Controller compatibility in PC games used to be managed only by the individual game developers, meaning a game supported a predetermined set of hardware and players selected from these prescribed input options. In 2015 we began an experiment to find out what happens when the community is less...
steamcommunity.com
In 2018 over 1.5 million Steam Controllers were used on Steam. Sure, if you compare this to the 38.7 million Xbox controllers that number looks bad, but Xbox controllers had been everywhere for over a decade. The fact that in three years 1.5 million Steam controllers were in consumer hands is honestly impressive, especially considering that the majority of Xbox controllers are likely controllers that were bundled with a console, while the majority of Steam Controllers were stand-alone sales. (This last bit is speculation, obviously.)
The Valve Index was also a success. It makes up over 15.57% of the Steam VR headset market share. It is second place to the Oculus Quest 2 (49.02% market share). Again, that might seem like a failure, but the Valve Index is also considered a premium/luxury VR headset. It costs three times as much as the Oculus Quest 2. Here is a review from late 2021 comparing the two headsets:
It's the Oculus Quest 2 vs Valve Index as we compare these extremely different takes on virtual reality headsets.
www.space.com
Their conclusion reinforces what I was stating: that the Valve Index is the VR headset you go for if you have the money. It is definitely not a failure.
This leaves us with Valve being 2-2 in the hardware department. Add to this that the Steam Deck had more people clamoring after it than Valve expected, along with the reviews for the Steam Deck being phenomenal, and it's easy to speculate that this will be another hardware win. That would make Valve's track record 3-2, which is a far cry from the 0-4 record stated.