The Great Steam Deck Crash of 2026: Community Reactions

Our recent article about the Steam Deck sales crash went kind of viral in the past week, and because of that there were long threads of discussions available across Reddit communities (r/linux_gaming, r/pcmasterrace, and r/SteamDeck at least) discussing the situation. I spent a lot of time reading the different takes, and I tought it would be a good idea to capture where people are regarding this matter.

So, here’s a summary of the different types of takes.

Segmenting the reactions

Among the reactions, you could more or less categorize them in 6 different kind of takes.

Blaming Macro-Economics

Folks in this category tend to put the blamne on things that are affecting the whole market. They view the 80% drop in sales as part of an industry-wide hardware slowdown affecting consoles and PC components alike, rather than an isolated error by Valve. They almost paint Valve as a victim.

u/Complete_Lurk3r_ (r/linux_gaming): “We’re getting to the point where additional price increases with the shitty state of the economy is going to create demand destruction for discretionary purchases like gaming handhelds. It’s not valves fault for these increases either. Just look at RAM and storage price trends. It’s not greed, it’s just market realities.”

u/Im_Balto (r/pcmasterrace): “In addition to the cost of everything going up at the same time. Pretty much all hardware is struggling harder to sell now than it used to”

u/Goldenrah (r/pcmasterrace): “Can’t really build a new pc when storage and RAM cost as much as the rest of the pc together, so why would anyone bother buying the rest and have an expensive paperweight.”

u/Aioka1 (r/linux_gaming): “The main issue is Valve isnt a hardware company they are a software comapny selling hardware ‘accessories’. They’ve already stated they goto market for hardware when needed and dont setup long term contracts like others. This is the issue they’ve had with memory as they are last to the table and getting hurt cause of it.”

u/Karekter_Nem (r/pcmasterrace): “Also with the rampocalype upon us Valve is likely wanting to put any components they can get towards Steam Machine. Not like they can buy individual RAM chips for the Steam Deck anymore either.”

u/mvpilot172 (r/SteamDeck): “Asus sold 18.5 million computers last year… Valve has allegedly sold only 4 million Steam Decks in total. Valve doesn’t benefit from being a small company within the industry… scale doesn’t favor Valve… Asus or MSI or whoever wanting to put Steam OS on their device is almost as good as selling a Steam Deck.”

Corporate Critics

Unhappy with supply chain excuses, some users point to Valve’s big-money maker that is Steam and their immense cash reserves. They argue that Valve should have subsidized component costs to protect consumers and maintain the growth of the ecosystem growth. They tend to point that this is a greedy move by Valve more than anything else.

u/DarkOx55 (r/linux_gaming): “Given how monstrously profitable Steam is, and how Valve is swimming with billions of excess cash, and the fact Gabe bought a yacht that houses another boat, I think it’s a little ridiculous they aren’t taking a cut to make sure things are manageable for the consumer.”

u/minegen88 (r/pcmasterrace): ”‘But poor Valve, they are an indie company that needs to raise prices due to AI, it’s not their fault!!!’ Gabe newell owns 3 yachts, including one that has a garage for a submarine, that he sometimes uses for fun”

u/Red_Sea_Pedestrian (r/pcmasterrace): “Somebody had to pay for those megayachts.”

u/Panda–Monium (r/pcmasterrace): “Valve doesn’t need to sell hardware because that’s not where their market is, but it still blows my mind that these companies just thought it would work… To me, it seems very short-sighted.”

Aging Hardware, Bad Value, Waiting for Steam Deck 2

Focusing on performance-per-dollar, some users rejects the idea of paying more for hardware that is already old and frankly borderline obsolete. In r/SteamDeck, this sentiment is particularly prevalent: existing owners who love their devices explicitly state that at $800–$1,000, the entry price does not make sense, and it’s better to wait for a successor.

u/Indolent_Bard (r/linux_gaming): “I just couldnt justify the Steamdeck at $1000 for only an OLED upgrade. The fact they still havent upgraded off the old Zen 2 architecture is crazy at that price.”

u/Izan_TM (r/pcmasterrace): “they sold every unit they had in stock for a LONG time and now the price is higher for a pretty old machine due to the RAM crisis , obviously less people are going to want to buy one”

u/NohFyoochur (r/pcmasterrace): “And then there’s the, ‘I’ll buy second gen,’ people like me.”

u/gg06civicsi (r/pcmasterrace): “The price is too much for old hardware. If they keep the price for an improved Steam Deck 2 it will probably sell well.”

u/Significant_Fill6992 (r/linux_gaming): “I wanted one before the price increases but no shot I’ll pay current price. Maybe a steam deck 2 but absolutely not the og.”

u/Wahjahbvious (r/SteamDeck): “Unsurprising. I love my Deck, but at the current price, it’s hard to recommend. The only reason why steam deck sold so much for niche product was being aggressively affordable for it’s decent at the time specs. Now it doesn’t have affordability nor decent specs.”

u/Vegetable-South5191 (r/SteamDeck): “Ya, I agree. I got the LCD new in late 2022 for $400 bucks. That is an easy recommendation. At 800 to start, that is a major purchase for many people now.”

u/mueus (r/SteamDeck): “Same, LOVE it. It’s also the most comfortable handheld I’ve ever used (second is n3ds xl) but I recommend against it to people at this price. I was hoping for a successor soon but it seems like that dream will be squashed for a while.”

The grass is greener out there

There’s quite a few users who point out that Valve is making it easier for everyone to consider other competitors, like the Lenovo Legion Go S or the ASUS ROG Ally. There is also a minority calling for the consideration of portable ARM devices (that are definitely getting more powerful year after year).

u/pho-huck (r/pcmasterrace): “My Legion Go S SteamOS is better than my deck in every performance metric and usability metric, and has a higher resolution screen. The only thing it doesn’t have is a solid track pad…”

u/MrSlay (r/pcmasterrace): “I just went with legion go s (16GB RAM, Z1E, SteamOS) instead - cheaper, stronger and only thing I’m losing is OLED screen.”

u/M4rshmall0wMan (r/linux_gaming): “I think it mostly comes to sourcing parts. Asus has a much bigger market than Valve when it comes to hardware… it’s either they agree to the price or they don’t get the parts.”

u/Watsyurdeal (r/pcmasterrace): “Price went up, there’s more options in the market. Kind of a no brainer. That said, I still think the Deck is the better option simply because of how well it works with Steam.”

u/Jtaylorftw (r/SteamDeck): “It’s a great time to get into low-spec retro handhelds. Honestly, ARM handhelds at or below the original Steam Deck base SKU’s price aren’t actually a bad value proposition and can still be serviceable for PC gaming via GameNative. Once the ARM fork of SteamOS becomes available to OEMs, we could see a new wave of SteamOS ARM handhelds fill the Steam Deck’s old $400 starting pricepoint.”

Steamed Potato Angle

Some users have a fairly different take, focusing on the fact that we shouldn’t need expensive hardware to play on the go in the first place. The key problem being the lack of optimization from game devs and publishers. And the current Steam Deck struggled from day one with very demanding titles.

u/haha_oh_wow (r/linux_gaming): “Time to admit games shouldn’t need tons of system and video memory or speed and release simple, good games that run on potatos, then release the Steamed Potato… Tired of graphically insane games everywhere when graphics peaked 20+ years ago.”

u/catsgardening (r/linux_gaming): “IIRC a lot of the improvements since were things like: individual hairs… individual grass/leaves… better dynamic lighting (RTX)”

u/malman21 (r/pcmasterrace): “It’s not even a mediocre gaming solution. It barely runs anything that isn’t a small indie game very well. I love my original deck, only because I use GeForce Now on it.”

u/CrustyToeLover (r/pcmasterrace): “I didnt get it to be the pinnacle of technology, i got it to play most of the steam games I own on the go. Why people keep harping on how ‘old’ it is is beyond me at this point; it was never designed to be a premium gaming solution.”

Early-Adopter Relief

Finally, there are existing Steam Deck owners who express relief, having bought the device when it was still reasonably affordable.

u/wyonutrition (r/linux_gaming): “Yeah, I’m glad I got one early on when the price was reasonable. I do love how much they’ve contributed to Linux gaming! Still might get a Steam Machine despite the price hike…”

u/thebornotaku (r/linux_gaming): “Flip side, the used market is booming. I sold my 512gb oled for what I paid for it.”

u/kotsumu (r/linux_gaming): “I bought a shit ton of tech the past few years. 5090, Legion Go, Steam Deck, RAM, etc, if I sold it off rn, I’d be profiting lol.”

u/TaxOrnery9501 (r/SteamDeck): “I got a family member one as a test last winter when it was on sale for $330, because I was looking at getting into the Steam ecosystem. Should’ve just grabbed myself one instead of waiting for the Steam Machine pricing to release.”

Where do I stand?

Of course it’s going to be difficult to put one’s opinion into a single bucket. People tend to comment on one aspect that is top of mind for them, but there’s probably a lot of overlap between the above opinions.

I certainly do not agree with the pure macro-economics excuse. Yes, every company assembling hardware is suffering right now, but it’s not as it it came out of nowhere, and sudden. It’s been months in the making and the signs were there: everyone knew that supply was being absorbed by data centers. The thing is, most companies did not end up raising their prices by 40%, so Valve acts like an obvious outlier here. It certainly seems like they took the advantage not only to cover increasing costs, but to increase their per-unit margin at the same times.

When you are in the hardware business, there are several things you can do to reduce the impact of the BOM: order large quantities in advance (build inventory early on so that you are not subject to the daily whims of the market), be much more agressive with your suppliers (Apple is well know for that), redesign your product constantly to make it cheaper to manufacture (the Sony strategy). Valve is a relatively small company (in terms of number of employees) all things considered, and while they may have excellent product focus, I’m not sure how strong their are on the supply chain kind of things. If anything, they look like amateurs every single time, with the most recent example being the Steam Controller release fiasco, where stocks were completely insufficient vs the demand, and they had no good ordering system in place to manage it. It’s understandable when you release hardware for the very first time, but that’s not the case for Valve anymore. And don’t get me started on the Japan side of things, with Komodo being even worse at getting stuff into the hands of folks in East Asia. Let’s not forget either there is no way to buy the Steam Deck in many countries around the world, 4 years after its launch: no official distribution channel for markets like LATAM, China, or the Middle East (and Russia, but that’s for geopolitical reasons more than anything else). Australia is covered at least, while it took long enough (2 years!).

Coming back on the topic, I guess I’m rather in “the grass is greener out there” camp right now. Valve has decided to price people out of their market, so alternative handhelds look better every single day that passes - even more so with the maturity of Bazzite and CachyOS portable edition on alternative hardware. The Steam Deck still wins for overall ergonomics (the trackpads!) but that alone can’t justify the difference of price anymore.

Now Valve has another uphill battle with the Steam Machine - it will probably sell OK in the first few months, but just like for the Steam Deck, I bet the sales prospects will start looking bad over the long run at the current pricing.