[Snowfield9571]

I think this article makes one assumption that isn't correct. "This means that even though Valve will be selling this hardware at a loss..." From the reviews I have read, Valve is not planning on doing this. They are not doing an Xbox type of deal where games are overpriced and console is cheap. If I am not mistaken, I got this information from the LTT review where they talked with Valve about this directly.

[snvzz]

Honestly, if I was Valve, I wouldn't just sell it at a loss, but I would also bundle some store credit.

Getting new people into the Steam ecosystem should be worth losing a bit through the machine sales, with long term thinking.