Stop me if you've heard this before, but a game console just went up in price. Following Sony's, Microsoft's and Nintendo's cues, Valve just raised the cost of their beloved line of PC-based handhelds, the Steam Deck.
And it's not a modest hike either. It's in the hundreds range. There's no way Valve itself is happy with this move, just as Nintendo's own president issued a formal apology for raising the Switch 2's cost of entry. But here we are, telling this story again.
Tough times
The 512GB OLED version just jumped from an already expensive $549 USD to a much more expensive $789. And if you're looking for a 1TB model, you certainly won't be spending $649 USD anymore, as that would make it a relative steal. No, it's $949. If tax is involved — and it almost always is — you're north of a grand now. A dollar per gigabyte, I guess.
There was no advance notification of this change. Wario64's tweet above was done the same way others suddenly notice; namely by looking at Steam Deck's store page and wincing. Both models were out of stock at the time of the non-announcement not manufactured, but they have units available again as of this writing. It will be interesting to see how much of a dampener this puts on Valve's bottom line, and by interesting I mean depressing.
