The good news is that Valve now has more stock of the Steam Deck to sell, the bad news is it’s suffered an outrageous price increase.
Earlier this month, Nintendo admitted that it will be raising the price of the Nintendo Switch 2. While the company has yet to actually confirm a new UK price, the new US pricing suggests it’ll cost around £430.
That’s £34 more than at the moment, so anyone who’s yet to invest in the console will want to do it ASAP while it’s still £395.99. Fortunately, the price increase doesn’t come into effect until early September.
Despite the price increase, the Switch 2 is still the most affordable handheld on the market as the Steam Deck, Valve’s portable PC, has seen a sudden price increase of its own… by about a whopping £200.
Granted, the Steam Deck was never cheaper than the Switch 2 to begin with, originally costing £479 for the 512GB model and £569 for the 1TB model.
Now, per Valve’s website, even the cheaper model costs £669, while the 1TB model costs £779. To be precise, those are increases of £190 and £210, respectively, which makes Nintendo’s £34 increase look harmless by comparison.
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While a price hike was inevitable, considering gaming hardware in general has been getting more expensive, Valve didn’t give any kind of grace period and just instantly implemented the new prices without any warning.
In fact, the price hike was confirmed in a community post to say the Steam Deck was back in stock. So, anyone hoping to purchase one will be gobsmacked to see it’s suddenly more expensive.
‘Steam Deck itself hasn’t changed; these new prices reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole,’ reads the post, clearly laying the blame at the feet of the ongoing memory shortages.
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This doesn’t bode well for the Steam Machine either, which was expected to be very expensive even before the shortages. Valve initially advertised it as launching in early 2026, only to change the release window to the first half of the year.
Barring another delay, the Steam Machine should be out before the end of June and although Valve refrained from sharing an exact price, it’s widely assumed that whatever price it initially had planned has had to be increased.
VR insider Brad Lynch also claims to have heard whispers that Valve’s estimated price for the Steam Machine was already higher than the new Steam Deck prices two months ago.
He stresses this should be taken with a pinch of salt but, if accurate, it’s not unreasonable to assume the Steam Machine could cost around £1,000. At a price like that, it’s impossible to see the device as being anything more than a niche novelty for hardcore Steam customers.
Valve must be kicking itself over the poor timing, as this was an opportunity to make up for the failure of the original Steam Machine, which was a huge sales flop and discontinued after only a few years.
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