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Valve's Steam Deck is back in stock after months, but you won't like it

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Why This Matters

The return of the Steam Deck to stock comes with significant price hikes, reflecting ongoing supply chain issues and component shortages that are impacting the entire consumer tech industry. While this makes the device less accessible to many consumers, it also highlights the rising costs and limited availability of gaming handhelds, influencing market dynamics and consumer choices.

Key Takeaways

Valve’s Steam Deck handheld has been largely unavailable to buy since mid-February, a victim of the RAM and storage shortages that have been driving up prices for most consumer tech since the fall of 2025. The good news is that the Deck is back in stock on Valve’s site and ready to ship in three to five days; the bad news is that it appears to have returned because somebody wished for it on a monkey’s paw.

The 512GB version of the OLED Steam Deck now sells for a whopping $789, $240 more than its previous $549 price. The 1TB version (which also includes an anti-glare screen coating, a slightly nicer case, and an “exclusive startup movie and keyboard theme”) will now run you $949, a $300 increase from its old $649 price. The old $399 base model with 256GB of storage and the older LCD screen has been discontinued, though this had been announced well before these price increases took effect.

These prices are particularly hard to swallow for a nearly 3-year-old revision of an over-4-year-old handheld PC. If there’s a saving grace for Valve, it’s that most competing handhelds from the likes of Asus and Lenovo are also pushing or exceeding that $1,000 mark. Of the Deck’s major competitors, only the $600 Asus ROG Xbox Ally (and its AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor, which is very similar to the Deck’s semi-custom AMD chip) is significantly cheaper than the Steam Deck.