Scamming old people has grown into a massive and well organized industry that brings in billions in profits per year. It is a huge problem that has continued to get worse. As others have said, this is 100% a scam. They will inevitably use any number of techniques to extract money from him. It is very possible they already have and he just hasn’t told you yet, it is not uncommon for the victims to be secretive about what the scammers are getting them to do.

I think that $600 is a subsidized price and not really useful for comparison. I would expect the Frame to be at least $1000. The hardware likely is more expensive overall since it also includes displays. They aren’t high end screens but they still add significant cost. It is probably more expensive to assemble each Frame compared to the Steam Machine also. I wouldn’t be surprised if the low end model is $1500+