Valve added a warning on the Steam Deck page that the units will be selling out in specific regions.
Valve announced that the Steam Deck would be seeing a price increase of nearly $300 for the higher priced version. This was due to increasing market conditions, aka AI taking all the internal parts from everyone, and fans were skeptical of the outcome.
Well it appears it wasn’t a massive issue for Valve yet as the unit is currently sold out on Steam. For clarity the higher priced version of the Steam Deck is just under $1k at $949. Valve spent weeks building up stock as the unit was sold out for months, and finally released more yesterday. 24 hours later, all units are gone.
This comes shortly after both PlayStation and Xbox raised prices. In fact the only console maker that isn’t directly increasing prices by the same amount is Nintendo (knock on wood). It appears that gaming is becoming more and more costly for gamers, and the makers are working towards finding the breaking point where people simply can’t afford it anymore. Normally console prices go down, normally console prices are more affordable than PC, but none of that is happening this generation.
It makes the idea of a next generation scarier. If current consoles and Steam Deck are pushing $1k, that means next generation consoles and even the upcoming Steam Machine could be pushing closer to $2k. Would you be in line buying them at that price?
Source: Steam Deck Page
