Valve Takes Crazy Pills and Jacks Up Steam Deck Pricing

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On May 27, 2026, Valve’s leadership apparently smoked a little too much and the company officially announced a massive price hike for the Steam Deck OLED models. We are talking about prices increasing up to $300 USD (a 46% increase!!).

Steam Deck OLED

NPCs will be quick to attribute this price hike to “the semiconductor shortage” caused by surging demand for AI datacenter memory components, but that’s a poor argument to make. This kind of things don’t happen in a vacuum. The ROG Ally X that was released last year has remained at $999 since it was out, so either ASUS has some magical, extra-terrestrial access to cheap components that nobody else has, or Valve is taking the opportunity to make more profits while nobody is looking. After all, Gabe gotta buy new yatches.

Valve updated its store listings overnight, applying the following new prices across most markets (US, UK, Europe, Canada, Australia):

  • Steam Deck OLED 512GB: Increased from $549 to $789 (+$240 / ~44% hike).
  • Steam Deck OLED 1TB: Increased from $649 to $949 (+$300 / ~46% hike).
  • Certified Refurbished Models: Valve continues to offer refurbished units, with the 512GB OLED at $629 (LOL) and the 1TB OLED at $759 (LOL).

Valve has some serious nerve to sell “refurbished models” that were produced and sold initially at a lower price and selling them suddenly at a much higher rate. At least they could pretend “we’ll go through the old stock of refurbished models before we apply a price hike for those in the future”. But no. Reminds me of the petrol stations’ price gougers applying direct gas price hike while their underground tanks of old, cheap oil, are still full to the top.

What about Japan? I’m guessing the new pricing will eventually come, but the Steam Deck OLED has been perpetually out of stock locally (does Komodo even care at this stage?) so you can’t actually get one.

Steam Deck in Japan

In the US, the Steam Deck OLED 1TB model now costs $949, making it more expensive than a PlayStation 5 Pro ($899). At this price, I can already tell you: Don’t buy a Steam Deck, buy a ROG Ally X which is way more powerful, and install SteamOS, Bazzite or CachyOS handheld version, so that you have the best of both worlds, hardware and software wise. This pricing makes no sense at all and is a serious slap in the face for would-be buyers.

“But, but! Nintendo also did the same thing recently! I read it in the papers!. Ah yeah?

Switch 2‘s standard model’s price rose from $449 to $499 (11.1% up). And for the Switch 2 OLED/Deluxe, it moved from $699 to $749, which represents only a 7.15% increase.

Gabe was probably choking on his cigar while crying “Amateurs! I’ll show what a goddamn price hike looks like!”.

In any case, this does not bode well for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame. I am now convinced the Steam Machine will be priced (way) higher than $1000, and that it won’t sell very well at that kind of pricepoint (see our previous survey).

Valve is not Apple, and I doubt they can command a huge following of dedicated fans who will buy anything at any price.