Stop me if you've heard this before, but video game consoles just went up in price. Following Sony's, Microsoft's, and Nintendo's lead, Valve recently raised the cost of its beloved line of PC-based handhelds, the Steam Deck.
And it's not even a modest increase. It is in the hundreds range. There's no way Valve itself is excited about this move, as Nintendo's own president issued a formal apology for bumping the cost of the Switch 2's entry. But here we are, telling this story, yet again.
hard times
The 512GB OLED version recently dropped from an already expensive $549 USD to a much more expensive $789. And if you're looking for the 1TB model, you definitely don't want to spend $649 USD, as that makes it a relative steal. No, it's $949. If tax is included — and it almost always is — you're now north of a grand. A dollar a gigabyte, I think.
There was no forewarning of this change. Wario64's tweet above was done through the way others were suddenly paying attention; Namely, by looking at Steam Deck's store page and wincing. Both models are out of stock while not announced no has been made, but they have units available again as of this writing. It will be interesting to see how much damper this valve puts on the bottom line, and by interesting, I mean disappointing.
