The Steam Deck OLED has been one of the best handheld gaming PCs on the market for years, but it's not the value it used to be anymore.
Valve announced that the OLED version of the Steam Deck has gotten a significant price increase, after months of being out of stock entirely. Well, it's back in stock, but you'll have to pay a lot more to get one now.
The 512GB version, which used to cost $549, is now $789. The 1TB variant, meanwhile, has gone from $649 to $949. That's one of the most substantial price increases we've seen yet for gaming hardware, amidst the ongoing global memory shortage (aka RAMageddon) that's causing everything in tech to get more pricey.
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For reference, recent PlayStation 5 price hikes put that device anywhere from $150 to $200 higher than it cost at launch. Meanwhile, the Nintendo Switch 2 (after less than a year on the market) got a $50 price increase earlier this month. Valve's price increases for the Steam Deck OLED are bigger than those, though they still pale in comparison to the nearly $700 price increase that Dell just applied to some of its XPS laptops.
As IGN pointed out, you can still get a refurbished model for a little less than that. Refurbished 512GB and 1TB OLED models are now $629 and $759, respectively. Meanwhile, the discontinued LCD Steam Deck (which is largely the same device with a lower-quality display) can still be obtained refurbished for as low as $279, but that's with a measly 64GB of storage.
It needs to be emphasized that, prior to the AI arms race that is driving up memory costs, it was normal for hardware prices to go down over time. Now, game consoles are cheapest at launch. Feels backward, doesn't it?