You've no doubt by now seen the rather surprising increase in the price of the Steam Deck OLED, but that doesn't seem to have stopped people buying them all up.
Looking at availability across multiple regions - the official Steam Deck store is showing both models of the Steam Deck OLED sold out in the USA and Canada. However, checking further - both models appear to still be in stock in the UK, Poland and France but that could change. All of this has pushed the Steam Deck once again into the #1 spot on Valve's Global Top Seller list (although that is by revenue).
Valve do note on the store page "Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages" - so we may see stock intermittently appear. We also have no idea how much stock Valve actually had, but they were confident enough to announce stock was back with the new prices and for some it's now just gone already. Ouch.
Safe to say though - the Steam Deck is no longer the ideal choice when it comes to handheld gaming. As much as that sucks for everyone. The Legion Go S with SteamOS might now actually be the better option. It's a bit more than the 1TB OLED in the UK, but it does have the Z1 Extreme and more RAM. Or, even the ROG XBOX ALLY X that has the newer Z2 Extreme. The prices between all of them are a lot closer now, and so with the more powerful chips in the other handhelds the Steam Deck is a hard sell now. Still, back to the title of the article - it clearly hasn't stopped people buying them from Valve.
Perhaps though with the new handhelds coming with the just announced Intel Arc G-Series processors, we might get at least a little more competition going again.
Thanks again to all the AI companies and their vast data centres sucking up all the components and forcing prices up everywhere.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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PoliticsOfStarving 19 hours ago
Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingDoes anyone know what it's like to use one of these handhelds with no touchpads? How are games like Monkey Island?Try playing a point and click adventure with your mouse, but move it exclusively with the palm of your hand. Other than sticks, ScummVM offers touch controls. Good to have, but I'm not a huge fan if a mouse or a touchpad is available.
Perhaps though with the new handhelds coming with the just announced Intel Arc G-Series processors, we might get at least a little more competition going again.I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm skeptical those will provide any viable competition.
Cloversheen 11 hours ago
Quoting: CyborgZetaMy mother died months ago, so I live by myself now.I'm sorry for your loss, friend.
Enjoy your PS5, you deserve it.
Quoting: CyborgZetaI'm so sorry for your loss.Quoting: ItsRainingSomewhereSo I guess the price increase was't a problem for some people...Well, money just isn't an issue for some people. It's not a matter of being rich, just depends on lifestyle. My mother died months ago, so I live by myself now. Since I require few things, I can afford to splurge on the occasional "treat" like my recent PS5 purchase every so often. However, that's just me; different people have different situations.
I agree with you. Often is just about timing. A large tax return, a gift or whatever. I was gifted an old motor cycle last year which I just sold. It gives me some room to treat myself. I already have a Steam Deck but I'm interested in a Steam Machine.
Another thing people don't take into consideration is that we probably haven't seen the last of price increases. Yes the Steam Deck is more expensive than it was but it could be OK relative to where the rest of the market 'could' be in a few weeks or months. So if you are a person that believe prices will continue to rise rather than decline, it's better to buy now than to wait. More or less we are back to a Covid market situation.
Arehandoro 10 hours ago
Quoting: ottergauzeThe only good I can see coming from this (and I'm grasping at straws here) is that once we see demand for AI slow down (hopefully), the used hardware market will be absolutely swamped.I'd like to think that, much like in the 80s, the real short-term benefit of this is that game developers will start optimizing their games more, and targeting more lower specs, and hopefully seeing more creative games instead of just brute force.
P.S: One can dream...
Got my day one order LCD Deck which needs some repairs but it works.
Just poor battery life now.
Scared to see the Frame and Machine prices now but hopefully the frame will surprise us.
If the different kind of ram is safe maybe ARM is the best way to go.
I'd be down for a Steam Deck mini running on arm, pocketable and pretty much the same hardware as the Frame perhaps?
Just gimmie my trackpads and grip buttons with steam input.
A cheaper smaller Steam handheld would be great right now rather than an old expensive one.
Machine wise I don't have faith in it anymore.
Maybe that could gp ARM too eventually if more powerful chips pop up.
Least until the rampocolypse is over cause this price hiking is killing everyones fun.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyThat only works if there is effective demand--if people are both willing and able to pay for these services. When the AI bubble goes it won't go alone; there will be a multi-faceted financial crisis leading to a serious recession in all parts of the world that have renounced Keynesian economics, i.e. most places outside China. So, people won't be flocking to such services, nobody will have the money.10 years ago I would have 100% agreed with you here, but I have conceded that, at least for now, customers are no longer needed. I know it sounds insane, but look at the last decade. We have been moving to just that - no need for customers. The central banks of the world can continue to "print" money and the corpos can cycle it around as they are in AI-land today. This alone is/will squeeze the majority of people, and yet it is happening at breakneck speeds.
I fear that we are rapidly approaching a time when things like AI and robotics are good enough to serve the oligarchs and the masses will simply be ignored (probably placated with UBI and distracted with war so we don't roll the guillotines) into extinction. In the meantime I expect (and hope I am very wrong) a slide back to straight up feudalism as those that control the AI/robotics will insulate themselves in untold luxury while everyone else descends into relative squalor.
This is very black-pilled of me, and I really really hope I am wrong. :(
honestly they are pricing those devices like scalpers, sold out dont means a lot if we dont know how many units they had, and when they get back in stocks that wont mean much either because we dont know for how long.
i hope they do better on the steam machine launch, both in price and units , i hope this is a 4D Chess move from then, where they make a profit on a proven device, to reduce the prices of the steam machine, sold at loss , but i doubt it.
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