Valve Raises Steam Deck Prices By More Than 40%, Blaming Rising Costs

Valve increased Steam Deck prices by more than 40 per cent due to higher costs

Valve announced that the price of its two Steam Deck models had increased by more than 40 per cent, or nearly Pound200, on the grounds of “an increase in memory and storage costs”.

Its 512GB OLOED handheld video computer (a new number with an upgrade screen) is now sold at $789 (GBP 649 and Euro 779) and has increased by 43 per cent or Pound170. The larger 1TB model was sold at $949 (£779, Euro919) and increased by 46 per cent, or Pound210.

In a blog post, the game giant stated that Steam Deck itself had not changed and that price changes reflected “the current state of component costs and other global logistics challenges for the whole industry”.

Steam Deck OLED was officially launched in November 2023 as a major hardware revision of the original LCD model.

Valve no longer sells its cheaper LCD model directly, which means that the client can only buy the OLED version from the company.

Before Valve announced this, these new numbers had been missing for months.

The Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Video Gomes Cronicle, Chris Scullion, told the BBC that the addition of components such as Ram meant that the Steam machine "may eventually be so expensive that Valve might even reconsider publishing it" or that the company might wait "until the situation is resolved."

Industry rises

There have been several recent increases in hardware and subscription prices in the industry, with companies often mentioning hardware tariffs, persistent inflation and shortages of RAM (a memory chip used in computing devices).

Nintendo also announced that, starting in September, Switch 2 would increase from $449.99 to $499.99, and from Euro469.99 to Euro499.99 in most European countries. It stated that the revised British price (Switch 2 currently sold at Pound395.99) would be confirmed at a later date.