The Steam Deck is again, and reasonably priced PC gaming is lifeless

The Steam Deck, harbinger of a conveyable PC gaming revolution, has been out of inventory for 3 months. Now it’s again… at nearly double the value of the unique mannequin. It’ll price you $789 USD to get the 512GB OLED model, $949 for the 1TB improve. The unique LCD mannequin, which debuted at $400, is resigned to the dustbin of historical past.

Welcome to PC gaming in 2026, the place the Okay-shaped economic system has claimed the final remaining reasonably priced choice. The 512GB OLED mannequin now prices $1,129 in Canada, 649 kilos within the UK, 779 euro in Europe, $1,199 in Australia, and three,279 PLN in Poland. The 1TB OLED model prices 1,349 CAD/919 euro/779 kilos/1,429 dollarydoos/3,879 PLN. Ouch.

Bear in mind, all of those are utilizing AMD built-in laptop computer graphics from the Zen 2 era, now six years outdated. I don’t suppose anybody would disagree with me after I say that almost a thousand bucks is an excessive amount of to pay for the efficiency you get right here.

Valve calls a spade a spade in its announcement publish. “Steam Deck is again in inventory, with a worth improve for each fashions as a consequence of rising reminiscence and storage prices.” We’ve seen comparable will increase for different {hardware} just like the Lenovo Legion Go collection, which now prices nearly a thousand US {dollars} for the “reasonably priced” Go S mannequin that ships with SteamOS as an alternative of Home windows.

The push on RAM and storage as chip producers prioritize worthwhile “AI” knowledge facilities has left each shoppers and PC producers with few choices however to pay, pay, pay. Whereas reminiscence costs appear to have hit a plateau — a minimum of for now — it’s develop into primarily unattainable to construct a desktop PC that may deal with the most recent AAA video games for beneath $1,000 or so. We’re in a traditionally unusual place the place attempting to find a reduction on a pre-built machine would possibly get you vital financial savings versus a DIY construct, as consumer-packaged RAM has been hit the toughest.

Valve is a large firm, a juggernaut within the gaming area… nevertheless it’s not proof against a worldwide rush that has chip producers booked up for months or years. The identical RAM disaster has pushed the corporate’s new {hardware} initiatives, the console-style Steam Machine with its discrete GPU and the Meta Quest-style Steam Body VR headset, to an unsure “late 2026” timeline. The largest query from the Steam Machine’s announcement final yr continues to be probably the most urgent one — how a lot will it price? A worth beneath $1,000 appears all however unattainable at this level.

We’re beginning to see a minimum of a little bit of market correction. Reminiscence producers that previously served the home Chinese language market solely have an opportunity to go worldwide, as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron ignore shopper PCs and different electronics. A minimum of a number of Corsair RAM modules at the moment are transport with reminiscence produced by CXMT, although it seems like these merchandise are nonetheless being offered solely in China in the mean time.

I really feel like a damaged report right here, however as soon as once more, the one actual hope of aid for RAM and storage costs is that if the “AI” bubble pops. And there are indicators of that occuring, as knowledge heart building begins to fulfill sharp opposition, from each close by residents (who object to respiration gasoline fumes and tripled energy payments for the sake of a dozen low-paid jobs) and politicians representing them. However with big parts of the economic system mainly holding on to the “AI” bubble for expensive life, that situation would include its personal further issues.