They know it's a tough sell. Fortunately for everyone in the market, you can still find used CPUs/GPUs/RAM pretty easily and save a decent amount if you're ok with building your own.

Valve doesn't need this to do well to survive. And you don't need a steam machine (or any >$1000 machine) to play PC games. Just wait it out or buy used hardware. Hell, even an rog ally x plays just about anything (and also supports steamOS), and you can still get that at reasonable prices.