Good and bad news for anyone thinking about buying one. Steam Deck. The first is that, after several months without stocks, Valve has announced that it is back in stock. The second, a very significant increase in its priceup to €240 in Spain, both in the model with 512GB storage as in 1TB.
Thus, the 512 GB OLED Steam Deck goes up €210going from €569 to €779an increase of 36.9%. In the variant with 1 TB of storage, the increase is greater, €240going from €679 to €91935.3%.
The company assures that the price increase is due to ‘increased memory and storage costs’. Nothing has changed on the Steam Deck, but these new prices reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry. We will keep you informed if there are any changes.’ In other words, the famous ‘RAMageddon’ which since last fall has been turning the industry upside down in terms of availability and prices of RAM and storage due to the high demand for AI data centers.
Already in February, Valve reported that the portable game console would be out of stock ‘intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages’. This shortage also poses a problem for another device announced by the company for earlier this year, but which has been delayed to some time yet to be determined in 2026, the Steam Machine. The price that Valve’s new game console will finally have is also yet to be announced.
The prices of game consoles do not stop rising
Valve’s move confirms a worrying trend in recent years, and one that is not only caused by the current memory shortage. Traditionally, game consoles have been dropping in price the longer they have been on the market and the hardware was getting older, but In this decade the opposite is happening.
PS5 It went on the market in 2020 with a price of €449 in the digital version, without reading unit, and €549 in the version with reader. They now cost, respectively, €599 and €649. The PS5 Pro2024 update, came out €799 and it’s already in €899. In this case, in addition, the reading unit is sold separately by €79.
Xbox Series X and S Serieslaunched in the same year as PS5, arrived costing €299 the S Series and €499 the Series €349with 512 GB, and €399with 1 TB. The second part of €549 with 1 TB and without reader, go up to €599 with reading unit and starts €699 with 2 TB.
The Switch 2for its part, arrived on the market last June for €469 and Nintendo has already announced that starting in September it will cost €499.