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Comment on Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders

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dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Let me show the math:

The base M4 model is 16GB ram and 256 GB of storare and it costs $600, “cheapest minipc ever with such performance”.

The 512GB storage model costs $800.

May I point out that 256GB of ssd storage does not cost $200.

The 24 GB model costs exactly $1000.

No matter how much ram prices are ramping up right now, 8GB of sodimm ram does not cost $200…yet.

Anything else above those specs throws the Mac mini into $1k+ territory.

Now, Apple rarely publishes manufacturing numbers to the public. But historically this has always been their strategy. A base product that seems too good to be true (because it it) that leaves buyers wanting a bit more. For which they get skinned alive, price wise. Of course, I can’t be 100% certain that the base Mac mini is sold at a loss. But evidence suggests the $600 mark is priced exactly to act as a loss leader.

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4am@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You didn’t present one piece of evidence that $600 is a losing price point for the base model (and you even stated that explicitly). All you’ve done is shown that Apple is known for their outrageous markups; something we all can see with our own eyes.

Given they’re greedy enough to markup storage and ram so much; I’m willing to bet they won’t bother with techniques like “loss leaders”. I bet the margins are just extremely tight but that profit is above zero.

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jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That’s just pointing out upgrades carry a large price, not that the base model is at a loss.

Which is a super common strategy in pre built, especially in systems that can’t in theory take third party upgrades. Commonly a mobile platform will charge a hundred dollar premium for like 20 dollars worth of UFS storage. At least at some points PC vendors have done DIMM SPD lockouts to force customers to first party so they can charge a significant multiple of market rate for their parts.

I doubt anything in Apple’s lineup is sold at a loss. They might tolerate slimmer margins on entry, but I just don’t think they go negative.

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