Maybe if they gave percent-off coupons, but otherwise it’s definitely not. The big console companies subsidize consoles because they know people are going to buy games for that system, probably on their digital storefront, and thus they’re going to earn that subsidy back in the profits from those sales. Even if people buy physical copies, the licensing fees come back to the console manufacturers.
But with Steam credits, that’d just be loss on the other end.
No even strait credits would be fine. Let’s game it out:
PlayStation sells a console for x-y dollars where x real cost of console and y is subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is z. Therefore total profit is x-y+z.
Steam sells Gabe cube for x dollars where x is real cost of console and issue y dollars of credits as subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is thus z-y dollars. Therefore total profit is x+z-y this is identical to that of PlayStation.
They can still do subsidisation without requiring the PlayStation/Xbox lockin as the credits limit subsidisation to steam ecosystem.
They could give you steam credits with the purchase essentially the same outcome
Maybe if they gave percent-off coupons, but otherwise it’s definitely not. The big console companies subsidize consoles because they know people are going to buy games for that system, probably on their digital storefront, and thus they’re going to earn that subsidy back in the profits from those sales. Even if people buy physical copies, the licensing fees come back to the console manufacturers.
But with Steam credits, that’d just be loss on the other end.
No even strait credits would be fine. Let’s game it out: PlayStation sells a console for x-y dollars where x real cost of console and y is subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is z. Therefore total profit is x-y+z. Steam sells Gabe cube for x dollars where x is real cost of console and issue y dollars of credits as subsidisation discount. Their profit from game sales is thus z-y dollars. Therefore total profit is x+z-y this is identical to that of PlayStation.
They can still do subsidisation without requiring the PlayStation/Xbox lockin as the credits limit subsidisation to steam ecosystem.