Valve raises Steam Deck price by eye-watering amount: 'Gaming hardware is beyond cooked'

Valve has confirmed huge rises to the prices of its Steam Deck consoles with gamers online agreeing "gaming hardware is just beyond cooked".

Valve confirmed Steam Deck OLED consoles are back in stock - but with price increases for both models, citing rising memory and storage costs as the main reasons why.

Steam Deck OLED 1TB previously cost $649 - but it's gone up by a staggering $300 to $949. The 512GB model previously cost $549 but will now jump up to $789, a $240 increase.

In a statement, Valve said: "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. We'll keep you updated if anything changes."

This has swept across social media with gamers unanimously agreeing "gaming hardware is just beyond cooked".

On X / Twitter, LegacyKillaHD said: "Gaming hardware is just beyond cooked... Next-gen console pricing is about to be horrifying."

Synth Potato agreed: "Gaming has become unaffordable, this literally can't be sustainable."

Kelski posted a meme that said: "Please don't say 'dammmn'... When you hear the price."

Pory said: "Steam Machine found dead in the ditch. That s*** f****** DOA. What do you mean 789 dollars for a STEAM DECK????"

Wood Hawker said: "Y'all cooked Nintendo over a $50 price increase. We are keeping that same energy for Steam, right?"

"Having a $2000 PC with 32GB of RAM is about to become the zoomer equivalent of boomers buying a house for $100k and sitting on it for life," one posted.

Another sarcastically posted "thank you AI" and added: "This kills the Steam Deck btw."

Gene Park said: "The Steam Deck is a top three gaming device or console I've ever owned. It's also now no longer worth buying. I wanted to get another spare one but so much for that. Unbelievably, the XBOX ROG Ally X is now vastly better priced atm at $1,000, more powerful than Steam Deck."

And Cary Golomb agreed: "It is such a crazy time that I'm actually saying out loud, actually don't even bother getting a Steam Deck OLED, just get the XBOX Ally X."

Elsewhere from Indy100:

• Steam Machine releasing soon? Valve shipments and software update spark speculation
• Steam Machine price 'update' has not gone down well with gamers

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