Valve officially raised Steam Deck prices by over 40%. The prices got brutally increased compared to before, and that’s not good.
Valve massively increased the prices of the OLED Steam Deck models; and the reason for that is supposedly more expensive RAM, storage, and logistics.
Now it’s;
512GB OLED - $789
1TB OLED - $949
That’s almost +$200 more than before.
Steam Deck is slowly losing that “best value handheld” status it was known for before.
People are worried about this now, because what does this mean for Valve’s future Steam Machine and gaming PC?
If handheld components are ALREADY THIS EXPENSIVE, then a new Valve PC could become way too expensive, or maybe even delayed, if not completely canceled. And honestly that’s not impossible right now considering how things are going.
The entire gaming hardware industry has started going down, it’s not just Valve. Even Sony already raised PlayStation 5 prices, and so did Nintendo with the price increase for Nintendo Switch 2.
And we all know RAM prices aren’t getting spared either; they’re going up because of AI data centers. Gaming hardware is slowly going from a mainstream hobby into a premium luxury hobby, which is bad for gamers around the world because nothing is really budget friendly anymore.
Steam Deck is no longer cheap for what it offers, and now it feels more like a premium handheld that costs almost as much as a monster gaming PC.
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