Steam Deck Is Finally Back In Stock, But Its New Price May Be A Tough Pill To Swallow

For a little while, the Steam Deck was out of stock. Now, according to a press release from Valve, it's back in stock. The prices have been updated as well. It now starts at $789 (from $549) for the 512GB OLED version and $949 (from $649) for the 1TB OLED Steam Deck. The press release states that "these new prices reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole." A $240 and $300 price hike respectively underscore this reality.

If you're a PC fan, this news likely isn't much of a surprise, but it still hurts a bit, as the Steam Deck was very competitively priced before going out of stock. The new price is still less expensive than building a PC in many cases. The prices are right in line with similar gaming portables like the ASUS ROG Ally, and still significantly under devices like the Lenovo Legion Go.

Even Valve and the whole Steam ecosystem are not immune to macroeconomic problems with the supply chain. 

Spec-wise, the Steam Deck OLED features a custom AMD Zen 2 four-core processor and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM (likely one of the culprits for the price increase). It has up to 1TB of NVMe storage and a 1200 by 800 OLED display. It runs on Steam's SteamOS 3 operating system. To be fair, you do get a fair amount for the money. 

If you don't mind refurbished models, a 512GB Steam Deck OLED starts at $629, although it wouldn't be all that surprising if those prices fluctuate as well. If you can make do with an LCD screen, the prior generation 512GB Steam Deck LCD starts at $359 for a refurbished model. It's still much less expensive than a Nintendo Switch 2, which is also undergoing a price hike.

The computer component market is fickle and that, unfortunately means that everyday gamers who just want to play "Cyberpunk 2077" while taking the subway are feeling the monetary pain.