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Given that Valve's next big product is a cheaper portable non-VR gaming system with a (planned) seamless onboarding experience, I wouldn't be at all surprised i

Given that Valve's next big product is a cheaper portable non-VR gaming system with a (planned) seamless onboarding experience, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a test run for a future portable VR set to compete with the Quest. Valve, with their already existing VR ecosystem, is probably the best positioned to compete in the space.

pronlover723 5y ago
Meta has 30x? 100x?, 300x? the resources of Valve. I'm not routing for Meta but it seems unlikely Valve can out do Meta.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world (eg not things like Farmville, but games pushing the limits of immersive 3D tech). The only real competitors to Steam are consoles. Games have traditionally been the main driver of home PC hardware, so I wouldn't count Valve out easily.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world... Facebook cannot do VR based on games. It wouldn't bring in enough money to sustain it. They're going after a much bigger market. The entire global PC gaming market was worth $42b in 2019. It's up a bit since then, but not by much[1]. That's equivalent to about 5 months of Facebook's revenue[2]. In other words, in terms of revenue, Facebook is double the size of the entire PC gaming market. It doesn't really matter how good or how big Valve are. They're a big fish in a small pond compared to Facebook. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/292516/pc-online-game-market-value-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/292516/pc-online-game-ma... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/technology/facebook-profits-earnings-q3-2021.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/technology/facebook-profi...
- findthewords 5y ago
  When it comes to engineering talent, I wouldn't be so sure. Steam is also among the biggest marketing platforms, especially for early adopter gamers.
  - baby 5y ago
    You mean the platform where you could change the password of any user account by going through account recovery and leaving the password blank? (That was exploitable for many years)
Auracle 5y ago
The main thing Valve has going for it is good will among the gaming population, which Facebo- Meta certainly doesn’t (to a stupid extent, IMO). However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space. I’m sure that’s somewhat of a business decision, but I honestly think Zuckerberg has a genuine interest in the technology and just wants to move it forward. While Valve could technically also sell at or below cost and hope to make it up with their Steam cut, they haven’t been willing to do that with any other hardware release.
- warning26 5y ago
  > However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space. It's really a shame this isn't illegal.
Tarq0n 5y ago
As long as Facebook keeps investing in exclusives for their platform while Valve doesn't they'll keep losing market share, no matter what new headsets they come out with.

pronlover723 5y ago

Meta has 30x? 100x?, 300x? the resources of Valve. I'm not routing for Meta but it seems unlikely Valve can out do Meta.

SkyMarshal 5y ago
Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world (eg not things like Farmville, but games pushing the limits of immersive 3D tech). The only real competitors to Steam are consoles. Games have traditionally been the main driver of home PC hardware, so I wouldn't count Valve out easily.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world... Facebook cannot do VR based on games. It wouldn't bring in enough money to sustain it. They're going after a much bigger market. The entire global PC gaming market was worth $42b in 2019. It's up a bit since then, but not by much[1]. That's equivalent to about 5 months of Facebook's revenue[2]. In other words, in terms of revenue, Facebook is double the size of the entire PC gaming market. It doesn't really matter how good or how big Valve are. They're a big fish in a small pond compared to Facebook. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/292516/pc-online-game-market-value-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/292516/pc-online-game-ma... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/technology/facebook-profits-earnings-q3-2021.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/technology/facebook-profi...
findthewords 5y ago
When it comes to engineering talent, I wouldn't be so sure. Steam is also among the biggest marketing platforms, especially for early adopter gamers.
- baby 5y ago
  You mean the platform where you could change the password of any user account by going through account recovery and leaving the password blank? (That was exploitable for many years)

Auracle 5y ago

The main thing Valve has going for it is good will among the gaming population, which Facebo- Meta certainly doesn’t (to a stupid extent, IMO). However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space. I’m sure that’s somewhat of a business decision, but I honestly think Zuckerberg has a genuine interest in the technology and just wants to move it forward. While Valve could technically also sell at or below cost and hope to make it up with their Steam cut, they haven’t been willing to do that with any other hardware release.

warning26 5y ago
> However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space. It's really a shame this isn't illegal.

Tarq0n 5y ago

As long as Facebook keeps investing in exclusives for their platform while Valve doesn't they'll keep losing market share, no matter what new headsets they come out with.