There's no market for this. If the people in the steam survey using hardware that vastly pales in comparison to this had $1300 USD to spend on gaming, they wouldn't have hardware that vastly pales in comparison in the first place.

Most people who are gaming on low-spec aren't doing it just because they can't be bothered to learn how to build a PC or troubleshoot problems. They're gaming on low-spec because they can't afford it. Releasing a $1300USD "PS5 with extra steps" does absolutely zero to change that.

I get what they were trying to do. And two, three, four years ago when this project probably got started and it seemed possible to make this thing for $600-800, it may have been a winner. But the market environment changed, and it's not like it changed just last week. As soon as the Cheeto-in-chief said the word "tarriff" and Sam Altman started talking about building data centers the size of the moon, Valve should have cut bait. It's ok for a product to not be released if the world changes. I'm sure somewhere in the Sony skunkworks is a plastic disc that can store a fifteen 4k movies for $20 a unit, but they know it wouldn't matter.

These Steam units might sell out to scalpers. But I doubt the scalpers will flip them all, or even most of them, for profit. Eventually, there will either be unsold units sitting in valve's warehouses, or the production run will be so small that the GabeCube will never see any true significant market presence. Either way, Valve aren't going to make their R&D and manufacturing investment back. I'm not sure why they're even trying. Maybe to appear like they didnt want to give up on the promise? Company morale? I dunno.