Steam Deck back in stock, with updated pricing (OLED 512GB $789, OLED 1TB $949)
Posted by jerryfrz@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 164 comments
Posted by jerryfrz@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 164 comments
OneAsterix864@reddit
no way valve is charging a thousand bucks for a handheld with a 4yr old zen 2 architecture.
blackbalt89@reddit
The architecture itself is even older.
nmkd@reddit
Well, $780 is not a thousand
IBM296@reddit
Kinda' insane that 512GB Steam Deck Oled was $100 more expensive than Switch 2 before. Now it's $300 more expensive.
Who's going to buy it at that price??
Faranocks@reddit
Yea... At least update the APU. The current one is showing it's age already. At a lower price it's excusable, but at $1k after tax it's just not a good deal.
hsien88@reddit
Not every company cares about gamers like Nvidia. Switch = Nvidia = low price.
From-UoM@reddit
Nvidia is really good at using older nodes.
Samsung 8N (a custom Samsung 10nm) is much cheaper than the Tsmc N6 used on the steam deck.
And Nvidia managed to make it much more efficient than the Tmsc
SoTOP@reddit
You are misleading. First of all, Switch 2 runs dedicated games, while steamdeck runs regular PC versions without dev optimizations, that alone is significant for optimal performance.
Another thing is that Switch 2 die is 50% bigger than Steamdeck, helping to make up the difference between nodes.
Also, 8N is custom Samsung 8nm, not 10nm.
From-UoM@reddit
Nvidia always does with xN chips
A deeper look at the switch 2 confirmed it has 10nm properties. Thus confirming its custom 10nm nature.
https://youtu.be/3pr_V8rtzrE?t=446&si=l6A4sf-8PgmhuqjU
Cant argue with the physical die shot here
SoTOP@reddit
Did you even watch the video? It shows why you are wrong. SMG 10nm does not posses the characteristics T239 has.
You are missing basic logic here, I can give you an example to showcase it - if 4 cylinder car engine tuned to perfection has 200hp while 6 cylinder engine has 300hp, then we know that any engine with more than 200hp must be based on 6 cylinder engine. Same exact thing here.
T239 is tiny bit looser than typical Ampere chips were, but still denser than even theoretical max density of Samsung 10nm node. That's why it's using 8N node, and not 10N.
From-UoM@reddit
Firstly 10N doesn't exist. You will not find it anywhere. The last N is xN names stands for Nvidia. Tsmc 12 FFN and Tsmc 4N are other examples.
8N is a custom 10nm node which has 8nm properties. This is clearly shown.
Think about it logically. Why on earth would Nvidia add 10nm stuff to Samsung 8nm?
They didn't. Instead they took the base 10nm, improved it with 8nm properties to make the the custom 8N
Even Geekerwan, a far bigger expert than you or me, says exactly this -
"Nvidia's called 8N" is a custom Samsung node based on 10 nm with a handful of, 8 nm tweaks"
https://youtu.be/3pr_V8rtzrE?t=465
SoTOP@reddit
That's what I said.
How deep is your knowledge about these things? Basically all high performance chips are not maximizing the node they are using because doing so has an impact on performance/power/area/yield. There can be multitude of reasons for Nvidia to use looser than max specs.
My example with engines already should have very ELI5 shown how nonsensical this line of thinking is. You are not making an existing node better ever, those improvements get designated a new node and given new name. Using your logic there are no subnodes, because everything is just "custom" main node. N is added to nodes nvidia uses, thus desktop uses 4N based on N4, datacenter has 4NP based on N4P - neither is called 5N just because fundamentally it's all just minor improvements over N5. For the same reason 8N is not called 10N - it's based on 8nm and not on 10nm.
From-UoM@reddit
4N is based on tsmc 5nm... You can go to GPUz on a rtx 40/50 series and it will show 5nm process.
And Trust Geekerwan more than you. If you really confident on 8N not being based on 10nm go tell Geekerwan he is wrong.
SoTOP@reddit
LOL, do you think GPU-Z scans your GPU to check what node it's using? Nvidia calls 4N "5nm class node", that's good enough for Wizzard. The problem with that is that every 5nm sub node is "5nm class", especially because differences between TSMC 5nm main and sub nodes are minuscule even compared to other node families.
I could easily argue the opposite, here is quote directly from TSMC https://investor.tsmc.com/sites/ir/annual-report/2020/2020%20Annual%20Report_E_%20.pdf
Voila, GPU-Z is wrong and RNDA4 suddently becomes "5-nanometer product". But if there is a thing called N4(4nm) I will call products made with it 4nm, and not broader 5nm.
You can trust anyone, I will trust specifications of actual product over Geekerwan.
From-UoM@reddit
>But if there is a thing called N4(4nm) I will call products made with it 4nm, and not broader 5nm.
Again, 4N and N4 are not the same.
And denying actual electron microscope data is a whole new level of arrogance. That tells me you will never accept you are wrong with literral state of the art prof
SoTOP@reddit
I never said they are.
I never denied that, reading comprehension please.
From-UoM@reddit
Geekewan uses a state of the art microscope to show that 8N is a custom 10nm.
And you are still denying this.
Its okay. You are right. You are always right. Everyone else wrong. The hard data is wrong. You are the most correct person in the world.
SoTOP@reddit
The
that T239, as an actual shipping chip, has density above what's theoretically possible with 10nm is constantly ignored byyou. The upgraded node that enable this is called 8nm, using one element from 10nm does not make this a custom 10nm, but a custom 8nm.
That's it. Stay totally sane in your ignorance while all you can come up with are lies and personal attacks.
From-UoM@reddit
As i said you are right. Lets ignore everything Geekerwan said. He is clearly a nobody with no hard data.
Nvidia obviously downgraded 8nm to include more 10nm specs marked in red. Clearly not the other way round.
You are the only right person here.
Hungry-Plankton-5371@reddit
"already"? The steam deck is a 4 year old product that was already 4 years out of date when it launched. It was showing it's age before it even launched.
mrheosuper@reddit
4 years out of date when launched ? What do you mean ?
blindlad@reddit
It's a bit of an exageration, but steamdeck is a Zen2+RDNA2.x device. Those architectures launched and were available 2019 and 2020 respectively, deck launched early 2022.
Valve simply managed to repurpose a SoC that was made for AR glasses that AMD was sitting on anyway: https://www.techpowerup.com/347966/steam-deck-2-ditches-semi-custom-apu-for-off-the-shelf-amd-silicon-eyes-2028-launch#:~:text=What's%20really%20amusing%20is%20that,did%20for%20their%20AR%20glasses.
mrheosuper@reddit
That not how "outdate" work, you should compare with the successive arch, not the days since it's released.
Noone says the 5090 is "1 years outdated", because it's still the newest, highest GPU for consumer.
nexodnb@reddit
outdated as in performance, not in age lol...
mrheosuper@reddit
What do you think the "date" in "outdate" is ?
There is no such thing "outdate in perfomance", nobody says 5060ti is outdate because it performs worse than 4090 lol.
nexodnb@reddit
you still dont understand, there is no point in arguing with you.
gtx 960, 1050 is outdated in performance, why tf are you talking about 4090 and 5090 and 5060ti hahah
mrheosuper@reddit
"outdate in performance", bro invents new thing lol.
blindlad@reddit
I'm not the person that claimed it was "4 years out of date", just trying to take a stab at the logic of a random poster on the internet
ErektalTrauma@reddit
Not quite four years out of date at launch, but yeah, Zen2/RDNA2 is pathetic.
TheMegaDriver2@reddit
1k for Zen2 RDNA2 is insane.
ibeerianhamhock@reddit
Steam deck is literally ancient tech at this point. I don't get it.
Sopel97@reddit
the difference gets covered after you buy like 3 games
Sudden-Grape3467@reddit
I guess, if they don't have sufficient stock to sell, they won't worry about sales going one.
Durendal_1707@reddit
almost $100 over the launch price of the PS5 Pro, and for a four-year-old handheld
fun times
kwirky88@reddit
It might be a sign of prices soon to come.
biscuitsalsa@reddit
We lived through our golden age of gaming. It’s going to get worse and less accessible before we see another
kittymoo67@reddit
i hope it at least kills rgb shit on hardware
replicant86@reddit
Games don’t have to be demanding.
plantsandramen@reddit
I am happy and sad that my doomer electronics purchases last year ended up saving me money.
kwirky88@reddit
I’m lucky I don’t sell my old parts from upgrades and builds. My ram failed the other day and I decided to downgrade to 32gb from the 64gb ddr4 I had previously. I’m hoping Corsair will replace the 64gb kit under warranty and not just issue a refund for the original purchase price.
valryuu@reddit
As a possible bright side, maybe this shortage will finally make developers start optimizing memory usage like how games used to be, instead of relying on consumers to have good hardware or upgrade.
boringestnickname@reddit
Slower/poorer hardware has been OK for ages now, honestly.
Most of the actually good games are indies, and mostly run on potatoes.
The minuscule amount of games that require the big guns are so few and far between now that I don't mind waiting a few years until the bubble pops and this whole thing stabilizes.
Chipay@reddit
Have you looked at software development right now? The entire field is turning into AI-prompting, which isn't bad per se but those AI models are trained on existing codebases, codebases that are terrible at memory management.
mack0409@reddit
Playing the soulframe preludes tells me that optimization isn't dead, it's just stuck in the setting's page. Game devs need to be ready to include settings that are fast enough to run on low cost hardware, and players need to be ready to use them.
berryer@reddit
honestly the problem is as much web devs as game devs, if not moreso
Kougar@reddit
In the last couple of years the number of companies that closed their AAA studios even on the heels of a successful game launch has pretty well proven the companies running the big studios don't care beyond saving pennies and wasting dollars. Optimizing games would just cost too much time for their corporate overlords to allow.
ILoveTheAtomicBomb@reddit
Next consoles are going to be over $1000 lol, easily. Hell next everything is gonna be so expensive, God help us with GPUs
This AI driven memory shortage is insane. Nothing is gonna be affordable anymore
siazdghw@reddit
$1000 consoles won't fly, not until inflation catches up to make that affordable.
They would be better off subsidizing the hardware by increasing game prices like 1 year after launch.
kittymoo67@reddit
they dont need to fly at first. they just need to exist so people will get fomo.
kittymoo67@reddit
ps6 $1300 with no disc drive included but sold separately
Nyucio@reddit
No, they will be $200 and come with a mandatory $50 subscription that allows you to play for 20 hours a month via their cloud service.
green9206@reddit
I bet Sony and Microsoft will be heavily promoting selling their next gen consoles on payment plan to make it seem cheaper.
Rich-Pomegranate1679@reddit
Shortages caused by AI + inflation caused by tariffs (that also hurt America's standing in the world, in general) + inflation caused by an unnecessary war in Iran.
We are absolutely fucked, and it only took 1.5 years to become this fucked. We've still got lots of time to get more fucked.
From-UoM@reddit
Usa tarrifs effects everyone unfortunately.
For example if US/Global sales are 50/50 and if a tarrif is 20%, companies will increase price in the us 10% and 10% globally.
This was they spread out the tarrif costs.
Mapleine@reddit
$599 in 2006 adjusted for inflation... $986. Holy shit, PS3 is back boys.
It's Riiidddggeee Racer!
HulksInvinciblePants@reddit
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Budget devices across all market segments (eg cellphones) are disappearing because component manufacturing capacity is being reserved for the most advanced, profitable offerings. We’ve also seen a shift in norms for PC value. Previously “overpriced” prebuilts are almost the only way to land a deal now.
So, as for the future of consoles, Xbox Helix rumors are indicating it will be a more “premium” product than consoles of the past. So, while the price tag may be $1000+…if it’s sold as a loss leader that can play console and PC titles there’s a non-zero chance it will look like a comparative steal.
Lirael_Gold@reddit
Prebuilts are often cheaper than DIY nowadays, especially if you're ordering from a retailer that lets you configure your system.
I priced out my 9800X3d/5080 system and even with deals I'd have only saved about £50 if I'd bought the parts seperately.
Darkknight1939@reddit
Prebuilts were often cheaper than custom for years, well before the current market.
Rodot@reddit
It started to change around the late 2010s after the menory hungry Transformer architecture was published. Before that people still thought RNNs and attentive deepsets were still the future of sequence modeling. Then BERT-style models started to become popular and data center GPUs started to take off. That was like 8 or 9 years ago.
letsgoiowa@reddit
Yes that's what he said
Loose_Skill6641@reddit
it's very disheartenin; the PC store I used to use for buying parts for my PC is now only selling prebuilts
goodnames679@reddit
I have trouble believing that Xbox will sell the Helix as a loss leader the way they have previous consoles. They have to know that as soon as Steam is allowed on their platform, a very substantial portion of customers are going to use it.
Even if they do start the console's price at a small loss, I think statistics on that will end up pushing them to abandon that price point rapidly.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
That's insane. $950 for a system so old it can barely play newer moderately demanding games.
siazdghw@reddit
$1000 for a device that struggles playing upscaled 800p games...
The only thing going for the Steam Deck was the price, Valve support, and touchpads. With the price being flipped to being more expensive than some of the competition, it's a dud now.
kittymoo67@reddit
do other options have gyro too? I wish someone would develop an actual competitor to the deck. with gyro, pads etc
airfryerfuntime@reddit
I paid $850 for the 1tb Legion Go last Christmas, and while kind of gimmicky and overpriced, the performance is somewhat on par with what you'd expect. I just cannot fathom paying more than that for a Steam Deck.
hsien88@reddit
Gabe needs it for his second Yacht.
BarKnight@reddit
They need to put GeForce NOW on the Switch 2.
$950 for an outdated Steam Deck is a crime.
Reonu_@reddit
No. Fuck the very concept of cloud gaming.
siazdghw@reddit
Nintendo would never do that.
Profits are in game sales, NOT hardware. If people buy Switch 2's to play cloud PC games, Nintendo would lose money instead of make money on Switch sales.
R3dBaronMS3@reddit
Why would you want a bullshit data center subscription service that is driving up costs for personal computing on your personal computer?!
Loose_Skill6641@reddit
supply and demand, when they don't meet then prices become wacky
IKnowCodeFu@reddit
So what’s Apple doing to get a $500 MacBook Neo that Valve can’t figure out?
Beautiful_Ninja@reddit
Scale of production. The Steam Deck is at the end of the day a relatively niche product, it's sold somewhere in the 4 million units range at this point, or about a million units a year.
To put that into perspective, the Switch 2 in its first month outsold the Steam Deck lifetime sales, with 5 million+ sales. Apple expected to sell about 5-6 million Macbook Neo's this year, but revised that number up to 10 million upon seeing how popular it was. Apple also effectively funds the development of bleeding edge nodes by being the top customer, they get the best deals out of any company.
77ilham77@reddit
By having free, already-paid-off SoC.
Lighthouse_seek@reddit
Apple moves a lot more units and was using leftover a 18 pros
Rodot@reddit
They also are vertically Integrated
Kougar@reddit
Apple signs year plus contracts in advance on its DRAM. Apple can negotiate down prices for said contracts. And the threat of losing Apple as a customer still carries weight even in the AI era. Zero of these things apply to Valve, or are things Valve can do anything about. Valve isn't even going to get volume discounting, everyone else in the marketspace is larger than them.
dustingibson@reddit
Valve being a much smaller company isn't going to scale as well as a giant like Apple. All things considered, I am shocked that the Deck prices were that low to begin with.
RHINO_Mk_II@reddit
More Neos sold on launch week than Steam Machines will ever sell.
Drando_HS@reddit
It's not a gaming machine and it uses an iPhone chipset.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
Apple operates in volumes that are orders of magnitude larger
Vodkanadian@reddit
Well, it's got one singular 8gb ram chip, and you can bet they are not getting shafted on supply because they're Apple. It's also kinda part of the chip itself? So it's probably not the same production line as the rest, again helping them since it's custom and whoever they pay to produce them gotta have a long-term contract and Apple will sue them to the ground if they scre it up. Did the iPhones get more expensive since the rampocalypse?
dabocx@reddit
Apple probably sold more Neos on launch day than Valve has sold steam decks the entire run.
It’s just a huge difference in scale and volume.
iDontSeedMyTorrents@reddit
Extreme vertical integration + moving more units in mere days than Stead Deck has in its entire existence.
holeydood3@reddit
Apples scale for MacBook is so incredibly huge compared to something like the Steam Deck; they can likely purchase in bulk at lower prices and had a lot of those prices locked in before the memory shortages even began.
bulletPoint@reddit
All the pearl clutching online amounted to nothing. The machine is sold out now, which tells me that Valve not pricing it like this to begin with was clearly them leaving money on the table.
AfterIssue6816@reddit
Oooh qué marvilla, voy a comrpar tres.
RoarOfErde-Tyreene@reddit
And they're gone again at those prices
SirActionhaHAA@reddit
Well i've said that most of these handhelds ain't gonna matter and people just didn't like to hear the truth
It's kinda weird that people don't see that and get hyped up by potential lunar and pantherlake gaming handhelds when the market is in such a consumer unfriendly condition.
JonWood007@reddit
Even at the price they were at, they were of dubious value. The original steam deck was 64 GB...you cant even fit many modern games on that. And imagine only having the space for like...one game.
256 GB wasnt great either. Again, in an era where modern games are 50-100 GB, it's like...the value just wasnt there for me in the first place.
And now storage is insanely expensive?
I mean, the steam deck has always been a rather niche product, and now it's just DOA to most people.
BighatNucase@reddit
Silly comment. The launch deck was like Switch OLED cost for a significantly stronger device with much more value for PC gamers that had big PC libraries. There was no device (be it a handheld or a laptop) that was comparable in value:performance. 64gb was small, but SD cards are so cheap and performant it becomes a non-issue.
JonWood007@reddit
No not a silly comment. The steam deck had so many limitations i could never justify buying one despite it being up my alley in theory.
plantsandramen@reddit
It's more that the past 6 years have fucking sucked and people are trying to find a silver lining in this as everyone's life is getting more expensive in every single wa
LordHVetinari@reddit
might es well cancel the steam machine if the pricing is going to be like this. just the completely wrong time to launch this, sadly.
siazdghw@reddit
At this point Valve should just ship out the Steam Machine inventory they have at-cost, make it a raffle to old active steam users. Use it to generated marketing and goodwill and reset for a future version (and try a third time LOL).
Trying to sell the Steam Machines for $1000+ with their proprietary hardware that can't be upgraded, that is 1080p performance is going to get mocked by everyone but the most diehard Valve glazers. People know the industry issues but they definitely won't cut Valve slack, just like they haven't today with the Steam Deck.
kikimaru024@reddit
Valve doesn't love you.
They love money.
kingwhocares@reddit
It also shows Valve can't get the Laptop manufacturer pricing for RAM.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
It's not going to be right for a few years.
NeverLookBothWays@reddit
Not sure it’ll even return in a few years. It took decades to build up the infrastructure for PCs and consumer hardware. A lot of the supporting industries might not hold on that long.
Z3r0sama2017@reddit
Don't worry once China has filled ram demand they will move in and takeover the PC hardware market too.
Deckz@reddit
I think most consumer hardware businesses that aren't at the absolute top won't exist in a few years.
Punished_Sunshine@reddit
Not exactly, when the bubble explodes (around 2027-8) and memory chips go back into production it will make ssd's and ram much cheaper and thus make components accesible. But it will still be higher than before.
lonnie123@reddit
Not right against a $500 Xbox but it could be right against a $1,000 prebuilt PC
996forever@reddit
A $1000 prebuilt pc probably has a desktop 5060 that’s way better than this 7600m.
goodnames679@reddit
Depends where exactly they land the pricing at. If you were to build an equivalent SFF machine yourself, you'd end up spending $1000 and probably not have a machine anywhere near as compact.
The market might suck right now, but there are always people whose PCs die off or who have been waiting too long to put off upgrading much longer. Like Valve said, 70% of steam users currently have desktops worse than the Steam Machine's meager specs.
randomkidlol@reddit
i think they were planning on ~$1000 before memory prices went insane. there was an interview between a valve employee and someone from the press who asked something like "this is gonna sell for $600-$700 right?", and the valve employee just stared awkwardly.
if i had to make a guess, id say theyre aiming for $1200 now which would make this a day0 flop.
boringestnickname@reddit
Zero chance this will be $1500.
There's no point in trying to launch with that price.
jedimindtricksonyou@reddit
The story I heard (and have heard repeated several times) was Linus from LTT ask if it would be priced similarly to “console prices”, which at the time was $500-$550. He said something like “the feeling in the room was not good”. Of course, since then, PS5 and Xbox jumped $150 to where they are now, thanks to tariffs and the AI memory Apocalypse. I think they originally wanted to come in around $699-$799 for the base 512GB model, but only Valve knows what they will price it out after we have a $789 Steam Deck OLED starting price.
randomkidlol@reddit
well adjusted for inflation and given the more open aspect of the machine, id argue that 600-700 would have been reasonable before the memory apocalypse and tariffs. xbox and playstation post price adjustments is about the same amount. 500 was definitely a pipe dream and unrealistic.
the valve employee's supposed shock at hearing a price like that just goes to show how out of touch their price expectations are.
jedimindtricksonyou@reddit
Yeah, $500 was always an unrealistic expectation. I agree with that. Some mini PCs with just a Hawk Point APU with a slightly stronger GPU than a Steam Deck costed that much before things got bad.
Framed-Photo@reddit
If it's 799 I could see it doing ok, but if it's gonna be 1000 then yeah they should avoid launching. Even 800 imo is very steep for what it offers, but that's close to the deck now so who knows.
goodnames679@reddit
Even at $1000 I'm honestly not sure that they should avoid launching. Again, that's literally what it would cost to build an equivalent machine yourself. If I had to guess, it would sell an okish amount of units at that price point. Nothing insane, but not a total flop either.
Here's an example PCPartPicker build. Same number of CPU cores/threads on the same architecture with slightly lower clock speeds, cheapest MicroATX mobo you can get with zero consideration for quality, cheapest 16GB of DDR5 you can get, closest equivalent video card on the market, cheap microatx case, cheap 512GB M2, cheap case, etc. Only thing I didn't skimp as much as possible on is the power supply, but I still went for the cheapest actually high quality model I saw.
Cutting every single corner that could/should reasonably be cut, the price still lands at $950 for a build that's substantially less compact, less power efficient, less aesthetically pleasing, more work to set up, etc.
If you were to try to do a mini ITX build to actually get close in size, it'll run you at least $1050
siazdghw@reddit
That build will absolutely perform better than the Steam machine AND have an upgrade path. It's also not even using the best price to performance parts. The only reason not to build in comparison to a $1000 Steam machine, would be if you really wanted a pre-built mini-itx.
goodnames679@reddit
Little more complicated than that. If someone really wanted mini-ITX and the steam machine launched at $1k, you legitimately could not beat it with a self-built PC at that price unless you were willing to buy parts secondhand (and it's never realistic to expect new hardware to outperform the secondhand market in price per dollar)
If you weren't dead-set on mini ITX and you were willing to self build, then for sure go for it. Like you said, that build above will (at least slightly) outperform the steam machine. You can absolutely squeeze a lot more performance out of ~$100 more, as well, but you probably aren't going to beat that setup at the same/lower price unless you're willing to accept dramatically worse Linux driver support or buy Windows.
Personally if I was trying to build the best small budget rig I could with the fewest compromises, I'd probably land on this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LgKgbp
It's not at $1000 anymore, but the 9600X would be a good clip better than the downclocked ~7600x equivalent in the steam machine. The 16GB 7600XT would be a very nice upgrade over the 8GB not-quite 7600 as well.
You do still lose the convenience of a prebuilt, and it costs more than $1k (assuming, again, that Valve even launches the steam machine at that price), but it would outperform it pretty significantly and last quite a bit longer.
ValveFan6969@reddit
Anyone that was hyped for HLX is also death rattling right now.
Jaz1140@reddit
It was always going to disappoint with the price. People expect console level pricing and that was never ever going to happen. Not even close
AyoKeito@reddit
Maybe not a lot of people realize this, but Steam Machine as it was advertised will never happen. By the time prices start making at least some sense this hardware will be outdated. It was killed by poor timing, they've got their foot in with ads but can't release it now.
plantsandramen@reddit
Yeah, this was my first thought. If this went up this much in price then idk how the Steam Machine is going to survive
imaginary_num6er@reddit
If Steam Machine doesn’t launch, Valve will probably abandon it since this would have been their 2nd release of the Steam Machine
BighatNucase@reddit
Nah, the idea behind it is sound they just came out with it at the worst possible time to release any sort of gaming device. I think a bigger possibility is just cancelling it and hoping the market goes down in a few years so they can try again with a better product. It's not like the original Steam machines where even ignoring the price, Valve released something that didn't work well. Steam Deck alone shows they're really serious about this sort of device.
Exist50@reddit
They'll probably just try to muddle through for now. I think they'd rather bad pricing or bad volume vs abandoning it entirely.
Motor_Trouble2280@reddit
Anything the Deck can run decently, an older PC or laptop can do as well. You simply can't justify this price for comfort.
RealThanny@reddit
It's a handheld. You can't use a PC or laptop like you can a handheld gaming device.
Motor_Trouble2280@reddit
You could stream to a cheaper device using steams own services.
kwirky88@reddit
In my market a laptop with worse specs costs about the same. The screen size is bigger but cheap laptops aren’t very repairable and have firmware issues.
siazdghw@reddit
You can get refurbed Lunar Lake laptops for $400-$500 that will outperform the $1000 Steam Deck. Of course comparing refurb to new and different form factors isn't exactly fair, but at the same time a laptop is actually usable for work, nobody is using a Steam Deck to write emails.
Sharp-University-555@reddit
This is the neckbeard's 9/11
3G6A5W338E@reddit
AI.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Has the price of TSMC 7nm gone up? Stayed the same? Gone down? How about the price of the OLED display?
I'm sitting here wondering how the bill of materials for everything else except the NAND and RAM hasn't gone down in 2.5 years.
siazdghw@reddit
Valve stop subsidizing the Steam Deck. That's the only answer to why they went from the cheapest handheld to being more expensive than some of the other handhelds with better hardware. They are using the parts pricing fiasco to cover this up.
If it was like $100 increase, then yeah, it's solely the parts, but it's +$300 (AND Valve discontinued the cheaper models awhile ago). Valve is trying to profit off the hardware now.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Also, I don't know why you seem to think the Steam Deck had particularly expensive hardware at its time of release. At release, it was using TSMC's 7nm process for a total die size of 163mm² based on Zen2 and RDNA2. In 2022, AMD was releasing their 6nm, Zen3+ APUs with RDNA2 in much larger formats, 208mm².
So it used a smaller, cut down designed die with last generations fab process. It was just cheaper than the chips used in other gaming-focused handhelds.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Profit? From 4 year old hardware? Normally that would happen organically as BoM goes down.
Nates4Christ@reddit
It's underpowered at this point. Lots of better options available.
dragenn@reddit
And juts like that it became vapourware. I love my steamdeck like a child but this ain't remotely worth it...
kwirky88@reddit
It’s at least highly repairable, for those who already have one. Electronics that aren’t repairable and die will really hurt in the times to come.
Loose_Skill6641@reddit
Steam Machine gonna be like $1500
mpgd@reddit
Here I am hoping for the release. It is the perfect form factor for my house but In the end it all depends on the price.
WuWaCamellya@reddit
It just needs to be canned at this point since that does seem like a likely price. It's just predatory at that price and the only people paying that much for a system with an unupgradeable 8gb entry level mobile GPU from half a decade ago and a mediocre CPU to boot are people who see it advertised online or on Steam itself, are looking for an upgrade or first PC, and don't know any better and have no clue what the specs mean. Releasing a system with the specs the Machine has at 1500 would be wrong on so many levels.
Faranocks@reddit
The issue is valve is already out the tooling, design, and chip costs. Better to sell at a loss and recoup that much than to outright can it.
Rodot@reddit
On the other hand, it might actually give game devs a reason to optimize PC games to target a standard platform. Needing the latest 24 GB $3000 GPU to play a new release at 30FPS with AI frames is even more predatory and just plays more into Nvidia's price gauging.
Consoles have gotten away with more performance on less hardware due to standardization forcing optimization. The steam machine is still an upgrade for the majority of PC gamers. Most people don't have the latest and greatest. And a standard system to target means you are still getting more out of your enthusiast builds, being and to play at higher resolution, higher FPS, less stutter, and less frame gen.
siazdghw@reddit
The Steam Machine would have to sell an insane amount of units for developers to target it as a 'standard'. Even with the success of the Steam Deck, and Valve shoving it down Steam users and developers throats, it barely registers as a device people play PC games on. The volume is insignificant.
Rodot@reddit
Stop being so whiny and dramatic. No one is shoving anything down your throat. Pull up your pants and stop bitching
And it's not about how many people own steam machines. It's about how steam machines compare to the most common PC systems. Which are not RTX 5090s or X3D cache chips.
Allfeelings0Logic@reddit
Canned or pushed to 2029
yukiyuklee@reddit
People purchased them. It’s was in stock new and on the refurb site. Just checked back out of curiosity. Sold out again.
Existing-Belt-7106@reddit
Nintendo had an oddly reasonable price hike compared to everyone else and it won’t even happen for a couple months. It’s odd to see Nintendo be the reasonable ones this go around.
According_Hyena_3593@reddit
Guys if you live in the eu 1000 euros gets you a second hand pc with a 4070super,32Gb ram and a solid cpu that plays games at 1440p 100 fps high settings dlss quality instead of 400p25fps lowest settings with bonus stutters.
Steam deck made some sense years ago and at 40 percent of this price.
EndlessZone123@reddit
I own a steam deck oled and have been eyeing selling it for much cheaper arm handheld that is actually pockatable and plays the simple 2d games I'd play on a portable machine. It's nice but not worth it anymore.
siazdghw@reddit
You already have a device that play Android games and old emulates games. It's your phone.
Stingray88@reddit
Why are you comparing a desktop pc to a handheld? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. The two serve completely different use cases. I’m not playing games on my desktop on a plane.
Lirael_Gold@reddit
32GB of DDR4*
kwirky88@reddit
And not a handheld
deezznuuzz@reddit
32gb alone are like 400€ or so😂😂
constantlymat@reddit
Not sure how it is looking elsewhere but in Germany a lot of scalpers bought or preordered RAM supply as prices were rising.
It's not difficult to get a 32gb kit of 6000mhz cl36 ram for 280-300€ on marketplace sites.
goodnames679@reddit
Comparing second hand hardware to new hardware is a losing prospect. Everyone always tries to do it in recent years since hardware prices went sky high.
People were talking about how the Mac Neo wasn't that good a value because you could get a better used M2 or M3 mac at around the same price. That was true, on paper. That device went on to become one of the most popular laptops ever, because the majority of people don't trust buying computers or phones used.
siazdghw@reddit
This huge price increase feels like Valve ripping off the subsidized pricing under the guise of higher parts prices.
Like don't get me wrong pricing for RAM and SSDs have absolutely risen, but look at the competition, they are raising prices $50-$100 not +$300.
Anyways, at this price I'd much rather just buy another handheld. Steam Deck has bad performance, so why spend $1000 on one? For that price segment I'll wait for the Arc G3 (Panther Lake) handhelds that demolish the old AMD APUs.
PugsAndHugs95@reddit
Today’s price increases literally made me go from using AI as a tool sometimes just to keep up with it even though I’m skeptical of it to the following:
Deleting Gemini and Claude from my phone.
Starting to download all my photos and videos and books to my HDD so that I can down grade my cloud storage tiers and give Google and Apple less money.
This sucks so bad dude, none of this AI stuff or these big tech companies deserve a dime
batter159@reddit
hmm maybe it was a bad idea to wait more than 6 fucking months to launch your Steam Machine heh Valve?
sidesslidingslowly@reddit
While it really sucks that the price increased this much, I'm really glad that at least it's back in stock so that people have the ability to purchase it.
TerriersAreAdorable@reddit
Is this the shipment of "Game Consoles" youtubers were assuming were Steam Machines?
Current-Ticket4214@reddit
Nobody in their right mind should be paying $1000 for a game boy. This is wild.
FeijoaMilkshake@reddit
$499 is like centuries before.
Fit-Produce420@reddit
At that price it makes a lot less sense to me.
INITMalcanis@reddit
Oof, that's a price hike and a half.
Sure am glad I snagged a 256GB LCD for #3 nephew last autumn. I feel like it'll be a long minute until we see a machine like that for £279 again.