If, at any point in the last two months, you've wanted a Steam deck, you've almost certainly come across a giant “out of stock” icon on Valve's website, with the company noting that global market conditions, AKA a lack of large RAM, are to blame.
“The Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages,” reads a disclaimer on Valve's website. “The Steam Deck LCD 256GB is no longer in production, and once sold will no longer be available.”
That was back in February, and so far, the Steam deck has yet to return. Valve is aware of that, and is working hard to replenish stock, but it's complicated.
Steam Deck is the first of many RAM shortage tragedies in video games
Valve's handheld is currently out of stock due to RAM and memory shortages.
As first shared by The Verge, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffes said the company is “working hard to address this” but that “the world is a different place than it was last year.”
Griffais is almost certainly referring to the massive RAM and storage boom that has resulted in global stock shortages, along with price increases in multiple electronics, including the PlayStation 5 and Xbox series line of consoles. In some instances, an entire stick of RAM costs more than a base PlayStation 5.
Not only has the shortage affected available stock and the prices of those items, it also appears to be causing delays for future electronics, including the successor to the PS5 and Xbox's Project Helix. Valve, of course, is no stranger to these delays, seeing first-hand that the planned launch of its Steam Machine is in limbo.
Even with market conditions, Valve is still pushing
We now have updated information on the future of Steam Deck thanks to Valve unveiling the price and shipping date of its updated Steam Controller, one of three projects unveiled by the company, along with Steam Frame and Steam Machine.
Although the trio of products were unveiled together, the controller itself will be released, and it's clear why this is the case. “It doesn't have RAM, and it's not that complicated for us to start getting out the door,” hardware engineer Steve Cardinali told Polygon.
The company still plans to release those two projects at some point in 2026, with plans to provide new information soon.
“We don't have exact details about the timeline to share today,” Griffiths told IGN. “And we're hard at work trying to get them out the door. I think we're definitely hoping to roll out some news about that soon, but in general, I think things are going well.”
When Valve's own website will finally get rid of that “out of stock” disclaimer for the Steam deck is anyone's guess. The secondary market is, as expected, out of control, so a little more patience is required.
- brand
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steam (valve)
- Original release date
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February 25, 2022
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$399–$649
- operating system
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SteamOS 3 (Arch-based)
- processor
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Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
- resolve
-
1200 x 800
I'm fine with not getting new consoles for a while
PlayStation and Xbox are finally going to release new consoles, so why not wait a few years?
