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

bbc.com

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

#21

Post by dayvid »

bwilliams wrote: post #6

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 mainst…

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)

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

#23

Post by hibikir »

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.

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

#25

Post by stego-tech »

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.

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

#26

Post by righthand »

deadballcretin wrote: post #9

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…

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.

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

#27

Post by irthomasthomas »

tailscaler2026 wrote: post #8

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."

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

#28

Post by hibikir »

dayvid wrote: post #21
bwilliams wrote: post #6

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 mainst…

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.

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

#30

Post by ToucanLoucan »

TMWNN wrote: post #19
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #2

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.

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.
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