Valve hikes Steam Deck prices – 35% increase
Valve has finally increased the price of its Steam Deck and has delisted its cheaper LCD model
It’s official, Valve’s Steam Deck has received a major price increase. Not only has Valve’s £349 LCD model been discontinued/delisted, but its more costly OLED models have received a major price hike. Originally, a baseline Steam Deck cost £349 in the UK. Today, a baseline Steam Deck (OLED) costs £649. In other words, Valve’s Steam Deck prices are now crazy high.
Right now, Valve has not issued a press release or publicly acknowledged the price increase. The company has simply updated its pricing on Steam without comment. The Steam Deck OLED 512GB and 1TB models have seen a 35% price increase, significantly undermining the Steam Deck’s value proposition.
(Valve’s Original/Old Steam Deck pricing)
When the Steam Deck’s baseline price was £349, the device was an affordable gaming handheld with access to a huge gaming library. Now, the baseline price for a Steam Deck is £300 higher. Yes, you get a superior device with the Steam Deck OLED and more storage. Regardless, this is a huge price increase for PC gamers to swallow. To say the least, I expect the sales of Valve’s Steam Deck to lower significantly.
Thanks AI – You’ve made the Steam Deck more expensive…
The push for huge AI datacenter buildouts has created unprecedented demand for both DRAM and NAND memory. A standard 32GB DDR5 memory kit now costs over 4x as much as it did this time last year. DRAM prices have skyrocketed, as have SSD prices. Valve needs to buy DRAM and SSDs for its Steam Deck handhelds. This meant that price increases were inevitable, and we can all blame AI and the people who push it.
Valve delayed this price increase for as long as they could. Not many device makers have managed to stick to their pre-DRAM crisis pricing for this long. It is likely that Valve has run out of cheap DRAM and NAND, and now it needs to pass the price of new DRAM to its customers. Seeing prices increase always sucks, but it’s especially harmful for a value-oriented device like a Steam Deck.
(Valve’s new/current Steam Deck pricing)
Bad times ahead for Valve’s Steam Machine and Steam Frame
If Valve’s new Steam Deck prices are indicative of anything, it’s that their Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR headset will be very expensive. Both devices ship with 16GB of DDR5/LPDDR5X memory, and that isn’t cheap.
With DRAM pricing being what it is, the value proposition of any device with a meaningful amount of DRAM will look awful. That’s what happens when DRAM pricing skyrockets to unprecedented levels. What was already an expensive part of modern computing devices has become insanely expensive. Unless AI’s demand for DRAM suddenly evaporates, nothing will change. Brace yourselves, the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are going to be very expensive.
You can join the discussion on Valve’s huge Steam Deck Price hike on the OC3D Forums.
