Valve bumps Steam Deck prices by 50 percent—and I fear what this means for the Steam Machine

Price hikes in video game hardware are nothing new—just check out what Sony and Nintendo have been up to—but I’m genuinely surprised by how much Valve increased its Steam Deck prices, and now I think the Steam Machine will never see the light of day.

As per CharlieIntel, Steam Decks now cost almost 50 percent more than before. After the LCD edition was discontinued entirely, Valve’s OLED Steam Decks went up from $549 to $789 for the 512GB model and from $649 to $949 for the 1TB one. That’s $240 and $300 more than before for hardware that’s already started showing its age and lack of raw power to support mainstream titles.

Or, to put things into more perspective, you’re paying a thousand bucks almost for a console that is on par with the base PS4 in raw power. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think mobility and a 720p OLED screen are worth the premium.

What I’m even more concerned about is the Steam Machine, Valve’s elusive new PC announced near the end of last year. Speculations about the price, inevitably influenced by AI-induced price increases in RAM and storage, have been running rampant since its initial announcement, with many believing it would cost around $1000 or so. I previously reported on leaks implying the Steam Machine could cost around $650, a relatively affordable price point, but now I’m not so sure.

With something as banal as the Steam Deck having to go up in price by $300 because of these shortages, I’m willing to bet Valve is going to introduce a $500 premium on top of its planned Steam Machine price at least. That’ll probably bring it above $1000 at release, especially considering the Steam Machine’s more powerful, harder-to-get hardware compared to the Steam Deck.

It also relies on a semi-custom APU solution from AMD, and with that company swamped by and interested more in AI than consumer-grade graphics and processors, I’m also inclined to think that’ll be another heavy impact on the Steam Machine’s price and, what’s also important, availability.

That is, if Valve didn’t already secure a good chunk of manufacturing and supply for the foreseeable future to mitigate these problems (which, as you know, only emerged rather recently).

But, to make a long story short, this is pretty bad. And I mean bad, bad. It gives us a perspective on how things are going in mainstream gaming, even on the low end, which the Steam Deck sort of represents.

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