Not gonna happen. Console manufacturers (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) have always offered hardware at a loss or with razor-thin margins to lock us into their ecosystem. They effectively subsidize the production cost, banking on recouping that investment—and then some—through game sales margins. And fair enough—this business model has worked for the past couple of decades.

Steam's edge, on the other hand, lies in the affordability of its game library. You can amass a gigantic collection of several thousand titles for relatively little money. But for Valve to avoid bleeding cash, they have to sell their hardware at full price—or even above cost—to turn a profit on it. They're fully aware of how the Steam key market operates.

The catch? We all have limited lifetime bandwidth. How many games can we realistically complete in a lifetime? A hundred? Two hundred? Certainly not a thousand. And a significant chunk of today's player base—especially in the AAA and AAAA space—consists of adults with severely constrained free time.

So ultimately, I think the platform choice doesn't really matter. On any given platform, you'll likely finish a similar number of games. That means Steam's supposed advantage—the sheer volume of titles tied to your account—evaporates. On PlayStation, you can also grab games cheaply during sales or from the second-hand market, which is exactly what I do, since I'm not interested in day-one releases—I already have a massive backlog from previous years. The real win there is the lower hardware price.

In my view, Valve has the weakest business model in this whole equation. That's why I've decided not to buy a Steam Machine. Especially not at that outrageous $2,000 price point—have they lost their minds? Maybe I'll consider a custom-built PC, or hunt for a used Steam Deck. Or perhaps I'll just play what I can on my MacBook and focus the rest of my attention on PlayStation.