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pweaver 3 hours ago

The analysis seems mostly[1] solid but the conclusions are all wrong. The steam machine was sold out and wait-listed. Value doesn't charge until you are removed from the wait-list so these numbers reflect the number of manufactured units per week (e.g. manufacturing capacity and/or distribution strategy) of the steam machine and not demand. This is only a minimum demand. To get the demand you would need to derive info about the length of the waiting list.

[1] The unit mix would be what valve picked as the initial mix and not necessarily the market average. Also, the sales numbers would include the steam controller if you selected that option but I don't know if there is good data on whether any of the initial reservations had the steam controller.

brookst 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I read the analysis and I don’t see anywhere that it claims to measure demand.

It seems pretty clear it’s about how many units Valve is selling (charging for, shipping) and explicitly not about reservations or demand.

Valve is being smart here. It is far better to be supply constrained at launch than to have enough capacity to meet initial demand (and then far too much capacity when demand slows over time).

pweaver 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Ya, the article doesn't specifically use the word demand but in the final section Is It Good? says "The estimated 12k to 15k weekly sales volume reflects the fact that this is not a mainstream home run." this implies that the 12k-15k is a demand number but we can't reach that conclusion with this data.

ekianjo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

it also says:

> On top of that, Valve may be constrained in the number of units they can actually ship, so there may be downward pressure on a higher demand. We don’t know for sure.

layer8 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Given that the waitlist still exists, I think we can be pretty sure.

ekianjo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, but it does not tell you if the demand is 3x what the supply is right now or simply slightly above supply.

layer8 an hour ago | parent [-]

That's the point the root comment was making: The numbers only tell us how many units Valve is able to manufacture/ship, it doesn't tell us about the demand beyond that.

So it's not clear what point you were trying to make with your "it also says" comment.

2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
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