At this point, "big games company makes its hardware more expensive out of nowhere and for no reason" feels like as much of a certainty as the sun rising in the east. For some unquantifiable reason, though, it just feels different when Valve does it.
Valve has long had a reputation as the most pro-consumer games company out there, and while that conveniently ignores the fact that they literally invented lootboxes and paid mods, they do tend to be less scummy than most. For one, they're privately owned, which means there's no pressure from investors to enshittify themselves, and for two, they're richer than God thanks to taking a cut of every single Steam transaction. This is probably why there hasn't been a new Portal in fourteen years, but on the other hand it means you can buy the last one for under a dollar in the constant Steam sales they run.
Which is why it seems a little odd that they're joining the likes of Xbox, Nintendo and Sony in jacking up the price of their Steam Deck. The little handheld PC that could is excellent for playing your Steam games on the go, but it's not quite a thousand dollars excellent. Prices of both Steam Deck models currently for sale have jumped significantly, with a far less significant statement from Valve accompanying the change:
Steam Deck OLED is back in stock, with a price increase for both models due to rising memory and storage costs.
New prices (inclusive of VAT where applicable):
- Steam Deck OLED 512GB: Now $789 USD; CAD 1,129; EUR 779; GBP 649; AUD 1,199; PLN 3,279
- Steam Deck OLED 1TB: Now $949 USD; CAD 1,349; EUR 919; GBP 779; AUD 1,429; PLN 3,879
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.
That's a jump of two hundred and three hundred dollars for the 512GB and 1TB models respectively, in case you were curious. Sony doesn't look so bad now, does it?
Naturally, this has raised concerns over the as-yet-unannounced price of the upcoming Steam Machine. If a handheld PC on several-year-old hardware now runs a thousand dollars, how much are Valve going to charge for a supposedly full-powered home machine?
