The Steam Deck is a popular handheld gaming console, sometimes lovingly referred to as a “pocket computer.” The deck is made by Valve Co., the creators of the Steam platform. It has many of the same capabilities as a PC, including an optional desktop mode to make it nearly identical. Many of the games on Steam are compatible with the Steam Deck, and if they aren’t, chances are players created a custom button mapping to make it work. 

Recently, Steam announced a price hike for the 512GB OLED Model and the 1TB OLED Model. They no longer sell the budget friendly LCD models, though you can occasionally find refurbished versions to buy directly from Steam. 

What’s the increase?

512GB OLED Model $549 → $789 USD (+$240)

1TB OLED Model $649 → $949 USD (+$300)

Why?

The price increases are attributed to rising component and storage costs. We can thank the AI giants for the rise of storage costs. According to PC Mag, “Massive banks of memory are critical to peak AI performance, making memory chips essential to meeting the soaring need for AI power. The data centers that power ChatGPT and other AI tools are gobbling up a massive chunk of the available memory-manufacturing bandwidth.” Meaning not only are the Steam Deck’s rising in cost – laptops and PC’s will certainly give you sticker shock this year. 

Regardless of the shocking price point, the Deck sold out in less than 24 hours in North America following the recent restock.

Some are wondering what this means for the price of the highly anticipated Steam Machine – expected to come out sometime this year.