Summary
The Steam Deck OLED (and the discontinued LCD) is sold out in the US and parts of Asia.
Valve hasn’t explained shortages; likely tied to RAM price hikes and rising component costs.
We hope Valve avoids raising prices, but current shortages make a price hike feel inevitable.
It has been a rough few months for people interested in grabbing a Steam Deck. A few months ago, Valve announced that it was scrapping the Steam Deck LCD version, which meant that people who wanted to give portable PC gaming a try had to shell out a little more to do so. Some would even recommend a Switch 2 over a Steam Deck at this point.
However, the OLED versions were still being made, so things weren’t too bad. That is, until the OLED models also started going AWOL. And, unlike the LCD version, Valve hadn’t announced that the OLED models were not being sold anymore. As such, it’s more likely an issue with component pricing than Valve giving the OLED version the axe.
Related
The Steam Machine has been delayed, and it’s going to cost you more
A double-dose of bad news.
Steam Deck OLED versions are seemingly vanishing from shelves
And they aren’t returning for the time being
As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Bluesky user Wario64 made a post showing that the US Steam store had no Steam Decks for sale. This included the previously-discontinued LCD version as well as all the OLED ones, meaning if anyone in the US wants to grab one from Valve itself, they’re likely going to need to wait a little.
Tom’s Hardware also notes the same thing happening over in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan. However, some countries have been spared; it seems a good number of European areas still have the Steam Deck in stock.
So, what’s causing these Steam Decks to evaporate? Valve hasn’t made a statement as to why this is happening, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d pin it on two factors, both of which stem from the recent RAM price hike. First, Valve was likely balancing the price of the Steam Deck very carefully against the cost of the components, and with RAM now more expensive, the company may either be revisiting its pricing or working out a way to replace the RAM to keep the price low. Second, people who saw the RAM price hikes may have rushed to purchase Steam Decks as maintaining a gaming PC was becoming more and more expensive.
Regardless of the reasons, it’s worrying to see this happen. Here’s hoping Valve can get more Steam Decks made without needing to up the price, albeit it feels more like a ‘when’ than an ‘if’ right now.