SteamCube Should Be About China
Most SteamCube analyses miss the point. The only things that matter are China and incremental activity.
At GDC, Valve revealed that 33.7 of Steam Users have Simplified Chinese set as their Primary Language in 2024, 0.2% above English. None of that is a typo. It's also a market that really has never had consoles. Remember, in 2000, they banned the import of consoles, and it was only lifted in 2015. Valve should be doing press with Chinese outlets and releasing press releases in Simplified Chinese. I'm not joking. Some Chinese distribution plan needs to be front and center for this to thrive. So far, Valve has announced that they'll ship the SteamCube to every region where the Steam Deck is sold today, and the Steam Deck isn't sold in mainland China.
The other key part is not actually hardware sales, but let's excuse that for a moment. The Steam Deck ships about 2 million units a year. While I thought that was low, it's actually shockingly close to Xbox, which will likely run around 5 million units this year (PS5 did 18.5m). It's entirely feasible that Valve will become the number 3 console after the device's release.
But the pressing issue here isn't hardware sales; it's whether it adds incremental activity and users to the platform. This is where I have a hard time believing it'll accomplish that, similar to the Switch. I suspect it will sell units, but it won't convert into incremental active users. Essentially collecting dead weight like the Switch does on my TV console.
The giant problem here is: what does this thing actually solve for players that the Steam Link or Steam Deck doesn't? If this lands at $700 plus, Valve will actually need to answer this.