Today was a big day for gamers as Valve just introduced three products: the Steam Controller, the Steam Machine, and the Steam Frame. When you add this alongside the Steam Deck, I think it’s safe to say that Valve is about to win the next console generation.
I don’t think it could be a loss-leader for Valve. If the price/performance is good enough, what’s stopping companies from buying a lot to use as work stations? No company is going to buy Steam Decks for office software, but they might buy a Steam Machine.
If that happens and every Steam Machine is actually sold at a loss then it’d be a big problem for Valve
If it runs SteamOS by default, I don’t think it would be used as an office device unless there’s a distro designed for office use on the Steam Machine, which itself would only happen if it gets wide adoption as an office machine. In essence a catch 22.
It’s a PC. You can just put any Linux distro or even Windows on it. Some people even did that with the Steam Deck when it released
It’s not about what’s technically feasible, it’s about what the tech guys can convince the CEO of.