Valve hikes Steam Deck prices by more than 40%, blaming rising costs

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz725d5d1x7o

by -1 • 2 months ago

45 37 2 months ago

It's wild that the OLED Deck is now the same price as the Ally X I bought to replace my own deck about 18 months ago.

Still incredibly worth it, IMO. The Deck is some of the most fabulous and exciting hardware I've seen out in the last decade, perhaps only trumped by the M-series Apple chips.

chrisallick2• 2 months ago

some people agreed. it sold out really fast.

ToucanLoucan3• 2 months ago

For people who have a steam library, it's an incredible value for money. When I bought mine, I basically not only had a mobile gaming option, but a nice one, and one that already had access to 70% of my substantial Steam Library, with many developers promising Deck-optimized settings and such.

It's genuinely great hardware and a great experience. So much so (and because Windows is such a shitpile) I actually moved my Ally to SteamOS too. No regrets.

habinero• 2 months ago

I bought one last year and I love it, it really is a well designed and lovely system to use. Here's hoping the price hike doesn't kill it.

RationPhantoms• 2 months ago

My steamdeck broke about 15 years of strict PC Gaming habits for me. Games like Balatro and Megabonk have broken my previous definition of "fun" in a fantastic way.

TMWNN• 2 months ago

How do you like the Ally X versus Steam Deck?

ToucanLoucan3• 2 months ago

It has quirks but IMO, worth it for the more performant hardware. With SteamOS/proton I can run incredibly taxing games like RoadCraft and Fallout 4 VERY well, including at the full 120hz. The battery is also quite a bit chunkier which means I can get more in a session. Only drawback: the Ally definitely has more heft.

harwoodr• 2 months ago

"blaming rising costs" makes it sound like they're actually doing something shady.

It's not exactly a secret that memory and storage costs have gotten more expensive. It should not be a surprise when a piece of hardware that depends on those gets more expensive too.

gordian-mind• 2 months ago

This is a dog whistle to an audience that doesn't like it when companies make profit (but who would probably deserve a higher salary, according to themselves).

gpm• 2 months ago

Also whatever tariffs they've been swallowing to import these to the US, and the risk that those increase at basically any time...

bwilliams2• 2 months ago

I love my Steam Deck aside from the quality control issues I ran into, one of which required an RMA. It's really hard to justify $1000 for it when the Switch 2 is $450 (soon $500).

I do think there's a bright future for PC handhelds, especially when (not if) ARM processors can be utilized. I'm less sure about that if prices keep rising since that quickly becomes the difference between niche hobbyist device and mainstream gaming portable.

thayne• 2 months ago

I do think there's a bright future for PC handhelds

Maybe if RAM prices go down and hardware becomes affordable again.

tailscaler20262• 2 months ago

It's really hard to justify $1000 for it when the Switch 2 is $450

For someone without an existing library, sure, but if you have a massive existing Nintendo/Switch1 or Steam library, that's going to drive your decision making far more than the price tag.

bwilliams2• 2 months ago

I think that's a factor for sure, but is less important (generally) as the price gap increases. The Steam Deck also has a disadvantage in that only some of your existing library will be playable on the device.

There's definitely a price point for some where it will make sense to rebuild your library on the Switch vs pay the higher cost of a Deck.

Kreutzer• 2 months ago

The nice thing about the Switch 2 is you can find a plethora of games at your local library (if you have one, that is). That's essentially how my wife played 20+ games with her Switch 1.

dayvid• 2 months ago

You can buy a Macbook Air for that price. It doesn't make sense to buy it at that price.

I bought an original LCD Steam Deck and wouldn't purchase one if it was that price. This is great news for the Switch, but the Ally X would be the only other viable option right now (~$650)

hibikir2• 2 months ago

The question is how long Apple will be able to maintain those prices, given the run for memory that there is. Someone is making a lot less money selling to apple than elsewhere, and while the long term contracts are worth a lot in stability, there's a limit to it. Not everyone gets hit equally by a demand shock, but nobody is immune.

ariwilson• 2 months ago

Android handhelds (e.g. AYN Thor, Odin 3, Retroid Pocket 6) have been becoming more and more useful for PC gaming via apps like GameNative and GameHub. See for example, Elden Ring: https://youtu.be/GlzMkqFmKjo?si=w9q-j2ntt154b0--&t=621

plqbfbv• 2 months ago

It's really hard to justify $1000 for it when the Switch 2 is $450 (soon $500).

I had a Nintendo Switch 1 and sold it. My wife wanted to play the latest Pokemon release, she did for 2 months, then it sat unused for 3 years in its charging deck.

If you like some titles that Nintendo has to offer, then sure (I never understood the appeal of the Zelda saga for instance).

If you want a portable PC optimized for gaming with a huge library and where you can also do anything else you want, including modding it, 1000$ is still a bargain for what it offers. EDIT: and the library will keep expanding as Proton keeps maturing.

tailscaler20262• 2 months ago

apparently not high enough. already OOS.

irthomasthomas• 2 months ago

I watched a three hour video interviewing gaming hardware companies. One thing that came up was that pricing fluctuations don't actually mean anything in a market with zero liquidity. "When ram prices dropped 5%, recently, they probably only sold 20 units at that price."

deadballcretin• 2 months ago

I have seen some thoughts via comments on this news on other platforms and the prevailing kneejerk response to this is somehow that Valve is bad at managing their supply chain as opposed to being one of the last hardware manufacturers to raise prices in the gaming space. The Ally family, while faster, launched at the higher end, Sony raised the cost of the PlayStation, Microsoft with the Xbox, and even Nintendo. All to say, I think this is a bummer but also believe that Valve deserves some credit for having navigated the market as best they could before raise the price.

Whether the hardware is worth the price hike is a different question all together. Even further, the question is what this may mean for the other hardware products that they have still in the pipeline.

righthand• 2 months ago

I’d be curious to see the amount of people who dont own a (mostly) customizable computer with Steam installed that bought a Steam Deck.

Aurornis• 2 months ago

I have seen some thoughts via comments on this news on other platforms and the prevailing kneejerk response to this is somehow that Valve is bad at managing their supply chain as opposed to being one of the last hardware manufacturers to raise prices in the gaming space

Gamers are one of the angriest customer bases you can have in tech. It's a vocal minority, but they make a lot of noise.

The angry-gamer audience capture is pulling a lot of journalism outlets more toward ragebait stories. Some of the hardware review sites I visited have started to have more headlines about the current thing we're supposed to be angry about than hardware news. YouTube channels are really bad at this, with channels like Gamers Nexus and others shifting to more drama and attack content.

kryllic• 2 months ago

This does give us an unfortunate glimpse into the Steam Machine's potential price point. I can't imagine those would be any cheaper than this hardware, which is a real shame. I do not envy the position Valve is in, personal PC hardware pricing is becoming exponentially expensive for the average person. The Steam Machine, I would imagine, was Valve trying to create a sort of entry-mid level PC to get users hooked into the Steam ecosystem, but I don't see that being the case anymore.

frenchie41112• 2 months ago

Agreed - They are definitely doing this price change ahead of the Steam Machine on purpose, to anchor that price better.

That said there is hope for the Steam Machine to at least be similarly priced. I'd expect the COGS to come in cheaper than the deck because it doesn't have a screen, battery, joysticks etc and it's likely easier to assemble in general

frenchie41112• 2 months ago

If I didn't love my Steam Deck I would consider re-selling it for profit. This feels like the same thing that happened to used car resale prices during covid. For a year or two you could sell the used car you just bought for a profit

prism56• 2 months ago

This has ruined my optimism for the steam machine. I love my Steam Deck OLED, I don't play high end games at low settings or low framerates. I play older games, simpler indie games and it's an absolute joy for that.

This price increase is a hard sell still, makes me stick to the mantra of don't upgrade or buy anything unless there is no other option.

I'll just play different games, read a book, watch TV. There so much media out there, I don't want to be drawn into this AI RAM pricing war on products.

/rant

cubefox• 2 months ago

Several new DRAM fabrication plants are expected to come online in 2028: https://manufacturing.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/hi-t...

hibikir2• 2 months ago

Someone like Nintendo or Sony is making a whole lot more devices, so they probably have not just longer term contracts, but the scale to negotiate prices down. Valve might not even contract a line making it all the time: Theri total sales are in the low single digit millions, while Nintendo selst 15+ million a year, and expect 5+ years of a console's lifetime.

So it's unsurprising that when prices of components go up, a company that has a much lower scale ends up facing worse production problems. Just look at how the price of consumer RAM has basically tripled in the last year. And the Steam deck has to pay for the ram and the internal SSD, and those are also going way up. It's not a cost of goods situation anymore: Prices are now basically set at auction.

It will continue until AI demand for memory goes down, or Micron and such manage to get a whole lot more manufacturing capacity online. And just like during Covid, anyone raising capacity is taking big risks on how long that capacity will need to remain online. See the companies that upped production in 2020 and were wrecked in 2022 because demand collapsed.

specproc• 2 months ago

I loved my Steam Deck, lovely bit of kit bought on a whim, but ended up selling it as I just don't game on the go.

I definitely wouldn't have done an impulse purchase at that price point.

Not loving the price of hardware right now.

stego-tech• 2 months ago

Still excellent hardware, and I don’t entirely fault the company for the price hike (though I do believe they could’ve eaten part of it for the goodwill and told Gaben he’d had to forego another yacht or tender ship for a year or two), but man this price makes it a non-starter for me.

I regret not buying one when I had the chance, but I’m not paying a grand for four-year-old hardware. That’s dangerously close to Framework money.

seba_dos1• 2 months ago

Today's grand is worth $750 from a few years ago, and seems like you just need to wait a bit for it to get even cheaper.

tomhow• 2 months ago

Valve raises Steam Deck prices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297976 - May 2026 (267 comments)

Valve hikes Steam Deck prices by more than 40%, blaming rising costs

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