Valve announced today that the Steam Deck is finally properly back in stock, but they now come with a much higher price tag. I was wondering how long it would be until it happened, as Valve held off quite some time on it while seemingly every other hardware vendor put their prices up.
In the announcement Valve said "Steam Deck itself hasn't changed; these new prices reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole. We’ll keep you updated if anything changes."
New prices (inclusive of VAT where applicable):
-
Steam Deck OLED 512GB:
- USD $789 (originally $549)
- CAD 1,129 (originally $689)
- EUR 779 (originally €569)
- GBP 649 (originally £479)
- AUD 1,199 (originally $899)
- PLN 3,279 (originally 2,599 PLN)
-
Steam Deck OLED 1TB:
- USD $949 (originally $649)
- CAD 1,349 (originally $819)
- EUR 919 (originally €679)
- GBP 779 (originally £569)
- AUD 1,429 (originally $1,049)
- PLN 3,879 (originally 3,099 PLN)
Those prices are quite a tough pill to swallow compared to the originals, which were pretty great value. That brings the pricing a fair bit closer to more powerful systems from other hardware vendors. Although still nowhere near the price of the likes of the Legion Go 2 (which starts at £1,440!).
What this does is leave me even more concerned on the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame, if we're seeing such prices for the Steam Deck, both are likely to be a bit more than anyone was hoping for.
But, I do hope this means some more developers might look to actually optimise their games further, because hardware to run the latest AAA games is getting crazy expensive. We can certainly hope anyway.
Thank you once again to all the companies pushing generative AI, you're truly destroying everything.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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hardpenguin 3 hours ago
Liam Squires-Hand 2 hours ago
Quoting: MasterSleortYou can't write an article and expect people can remember the prices before they went out of stock. Nowhere is the price increase mentioned. Only the new prices are listed. I bought both my LCD and OLED Steam Decks at launch and never cared to look at the prices again, so I can't remember what they cost. I am 99% sure a AI model would have known to mention this.What are you on about? The article you are commenting on has the original prices right there and has since I hit publish.
Yeah I am annoyed, because it is subpar journalism.
Liam Squires-Hand 55 minutes ago
The problem is that the market was already experiencing considerable stress due to underrepresented AI demand and unpredictable tariffs by the US government. Now add an energy and logistics crisis on top of that and we have perfect conditions for a PC collapse at best and a full on recession at worst.
Quoting: hardpenguinFrom being the most affordable to the "only for hardcore hobbyists" niche 🫤Not sure if true, but i read that there is a new current economic model where it's cheaper to sell fewer items at a higher price than many items at a budget price , when you factor in the costs of manufacturing (parts , energy costs , shipping, taxes etc..). And that this model is directly targeting high income households and forgoing the broad base of lower income households.
There are currently around 32 million households in the US (for example) considered 'high income' (albeit that number is falling rapidly no doubt). If you don't typically expect to exceed that target for your customer base it might be seen as a more logical choice for some companies to go that route.
not an economist, just something i read.
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