Valve hikes Steam Deck prices by more than 40%, blaming rising costs | Hacker News Reader

Valve hikes Steam Deck prices by more than 40%, blaming rising costs

bbc.com

45 points-137 comments

Valve raises Steam Deck prices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297976 - May 2026 (267 comments)

I have seen some thoughts via comments on this news on other platforms and the prevailing kneejerk response to this is somehow that Valve is bad at managing their supply chain as opposed to being one of the last hardware manufacturers to raise prices in the gaming space. The Ally family, while faster, launched at the higher end, Sony raised the cost of the PlayStation, Microsoft with the Xbox, and even Nintendo. All to say, I think this is a bummer but also believe that Valve deserves some credit for having navigated the market as best they could before raise the price.

Whether the hardware is worth the price hike is a different question all together. Even further, the question is what this may mean for the other hardware products that they have still in the pipeline.

I’d be curious to see the amount of people who dont own a (mostly) customizable computer with Steam installed that bought a Steam Deck.

> I have seen some thoughts via comments on this news on other platforms and the prevailing kneejerk response to this is somehow that Valve is bad at managing their supply chain as opposed to being one of the last hardware manufacturers to raise prices in the gaming space

Gamers are one of the angriest customer bases you can have in tech. It's a vocal minority, but they make a lot of noise.

The angry-gamer audience capture is pulling a lot of journalism outlets more toward ragebait stories. Some of the hardware review sites I visited have started to have more headlines about the current thing we're supposed to be angry about than hardware news. YouTube channels are really bad at this, with channels like Gamers Nexus and others shifting to more drama and attack content.

"blaming rising costs" makes it sound like they're actually doing something shady.

It's not exactly a secret that memory and storage costs have gotten more expensive. It should not be a surprise when a piece of hardware that depends on those gets more expensive too.

This is a dog whistle to an audience that doesn't like it when companies make profit (but who would probably deserve a higher salary, according to themselves).

Also whatever tariffs they've been swallowing to import these to the US, and the risk that those increase at basically any time...

This does give us an unfortunate glimpse into the Steam Machine's potential price point. I can't imagine those would be any cheaper than this hardware, which is a real shame. I do not envy the position Valve is in, personal PC hardware pricing is becoming exponentially expensive for the average person. The Steam Machine, I would imagine, was Valve trying to create a sort of entry-mid level PC to get users hooked into the Steam ecosystem, but I don't see that being the case anymore.

Agreed - They are definitely doing this price change ahead of the Steam Machine on purpose, to anchor that price better.

That said there is hope for the Steam Machine to at least be similarly priced. I'd expect the COGS to come in cheaper than the deck because it doesn't have a screen, battery, joysticks etc and it's likely easier to assemble in general

I love my Steam Deck aside from the quality control issues I ran into, one of which required an RMA. It's really hard to justify $1000 for it when the Switch 2 is $450 (soon $500).

I do think there's a bright future for PC handhelds, especially when (not if) ARM processors can be utilized. I'm less sure about that if prices keep rising since that quickly becomes the difference between niche hobbyist device and mainstream gaming portable.

> I do think there's a bright future for PC handhelds

Maybe if RAM prices go down and hardware becomes affordable again.

> It's really hard to justify $1000 for it when the Switch 2 is $450

For someone without an existing library, sure, but if you have a massive existing Nintendo/Switch1 or Steam library, that's going to drive your decision making far more than the price tag.

I think that's a factor for sure, but is less important (generally) as the price gap increases. The Steam Deck also has a disadvantage in that only some of your existing library will be playable on the device.

There's definitely a price point for some where it will make sense to rebuild your library on the Switch vs pay the higher cost of a Deck.

The nice thing about the Switch 2 is you can find a plethora of games at your local library (if you have one, that is). That's essentially how my wife played 20+ games with her Switch 1.

You can buy a Macbook Air for that price. It doesn't make sense to buy it at that price.

I bought an original LCD Steam Deck and wouldn't purchase one if it was that price. This is great news for the Switch, but the Ally X would be the only other viable option right now (~$650)

The question is how long Apple will be able to maintain those prices, given the run for memory that there is. Someone is making a lot less money selling to apple than elsewhere, and while the long term contracts are worth a lot in stability, there's a limit to it. Not everyone gets hit equally by a demand shock, but nobody is immune.

Android handhelds (e.g. AYN Thor, Odin 3, Retroid Pocket 6) have been becoming more and more useful for PC gaming via apps like GameNative and GameHub. See for example, Elden Ring: https://youtu.be/GlzMkqFmKjo?si=w9q-j2ntt154b0--&t=621

> It's really hard to justify $1000 for it when the Switch 2 is $450 (soon $500).

I had a Nintendo Switch 1 and sold it. My wife wanted to play the latest Pokemon release, she did for 2 months, then it sat unused for 3 years in its charging deck.

If you like some titles that Nintendo has to offer, then sure (I never understood the appeal of the Zelda saga for instance).

If you want a portable PC optimized for gaming with a huge library and where you can also do anything else you want, including modding it, 1000$ is still a bargain for what it offers. EDIT: and the library will keep expanding as Proton keeps maturing.

Still excellent hardware, and I don’t entirely fault the company for the price hike (though I do believe they could’ve eaten part of it for the goodwill and told Gaben he’d had to forego another yacht or tender ship for a year or two), but man this price makes it a non-starter for me.

I regret not buying one when I had the chance, but I’m not paying a grand for four-year-old hardware. That’s dangerously close to Framework money.

Today's grand is worth $750 from a few years ago, and seems like you just need to wait a bit for it to get even cheaper.

Someone like Nintendo or Sony is making a whole lot more devices, so they probably have not just longer term contracts, but the scale to negotiate prices down. Valve might not even contract a line making it all the time: Theri total sales are in the low single digit millions, while Nintendo selst 15+ million a year, and expect 5+ years of a console's lifetime.

So it's unsurprising that when prices of components go up, a company that has a much lower scale ends up facing worse production problems. Just look at how the price of consumer RAM has basically tripled in the last year. And the Steam deck has to pay for the ram and the internal SSD, and those are also going way up. It's not a cost of goods situation anymore: Prices are now basically set at auction.

It will continue until AI demand for memory goes down, or Micron and such manage to get a whole lot more manufacturing capacity online. And just like during Covid, anyone raising capacity is taking big risks on how long that capacity will need to remain online. See the companies that upped production in 2020 and were wrecked in 2022 because demand collapsed.

It's wild that the OLED Deck is now the same price as the Ally X I bought to replace my own deck about 18 months ago.

Still incredibly worth it, IMO. The Deck is some of the most fabulous and exciting hardware I've seen out in the last decade, perhaps only trumped by the M-series Apple chips.

some people agreed. it sold out really fast.

For people who have a steam library, it's an incredible value for money. When I bought mine, I basically not only had a mobile gaming option, but a nice one, and one that already had access to 70% of my substantial Steam Library, with many developers promising Deck-optimized settings and such.

It's genuinely great hardware and a great experience. So much so (and because Windows is such a shitpile) I actually moved my Ally to SteamOS too. No regrets.

I have to disagree. The low resolution of the screen is my biggest issue. Many UI elements and such are just genuinely difficult to read. Modern games are designed for 1080p or more. Rendering them at 800p gives quite poor results. I mostly use my Deck hooked up to the TV now.

The comment i see the most on reddit is the refresh rate and the battery life are the deal breaker with the price. Very interested to see the pricing on the steam machine. i was looking forward to it, but looks like it could be over $1000 if they adjust pricing up 40%. but again, id imagine it sells out fast.

Everybody's going to have their own experience, but I haven't found this to be true at all. I've played a lot of games on my Deck and only really had UI visibility issues with a handful of them. For the rest, it didn't even cross my mind.

I think a big part of this is that many (most?) modern games are designed to be played on big screens at a distance (e.g. TV <-> couch). The apparent size of the display in that scenario isn't much different from a Steam Deck held naturally.

I just wish the Deck had VRR. That and the general lack of power are my only real issues with it, and the power isn't that big a deal given the massive back catalog it supports.

I bought one last year and I love it, it really is a well designed and lovely system to use. Here's hoping the price hike doesn't kill it.

My steamdeck broke about 15 years of strict PC Gaming habits for me. Games like Balatro and Megabonk have broken my previous definition of "fun" in a fantastic way.

How do you like the Ally X versus Steam Deck?

It has quirks but IMO, worth it for the more performant hardware. With SteamOS/proton I can run incredibly taxing games like RoadCraft and Fallout 4 VERY well, including at the full 120hz. The battery is also quite a bit chunkier which means I can get more in a session. Only drawback: the Ally definitely has more heft.

If I didn't love my Steam Deck I would consider re-selling it for profit. This feels like the same thing that happened to used car resale prices during covid. For a year or two you could sell the used car you just bought for a profit

This has ruined my optimism for the steam machine. I love my Steam Deck OLED, I don't play high end games at low settings or low framerates. I play older games, simpler indie games and it's an absolute joy for that.

This price increase is a hard sell still, makes me stick to the mantra of don't upgrade or buy anything unless there is no other option.

I'll just play different games, read a book, watch TV. There so much media out there, I don't want to be drawn into this AI RAM pricing war on products.

/rant

Several new DRAM fabrication plants are expected to come online in 2028: https://manufacturing.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/hi-t...

I loved my Steam Deck, lovely bit of kit bought on a whim, but ended up selling it as I just don't game on the go.

I definitely wouldn't have done an impulse purchase at that price point.

Not loving the price of hardware right now.

apparently not high enough. already OOS.

I watched a three hour video interviewing gaming hardware companies. One thing that came up was that pricing fluctuations don't actually mean anything in a market with zero liquidity. "When ram prices dropped 5%, recently, they probably only sold 20 units at that price."

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