The Steam Deck appears to be all out of steam when it comes to sales, but not because the popularity has dropped off a cliff, but because the RAM shortage has caught up with it. The popularity of the Steam Deck is as high as ever, really, but the RAM shortage has impacted even Valve’s handheld, causing a mass rush to the Steam store to buy up stock.
Whether consumers have feared higher prices of the handheld following Valve’s announcement of the Steam Machine price increase, or they simply want an alternative that costs less, is unclear. The reason also doesn’t really matter in the end. The Steam Deck is out of stock, and the RAM shortage is the likely culprit. The Steam Deck has gone out of stock before. However, that was mostly around the time of its launch. Here we are, a few years later, and Valve hasn’t really had trouble keeping stock available. That is, until the RAM shortage caused a surge in prices of all kinds of components, which resulted in the unannounced higher price of Valve’s upcoming gaming PC for your TV.
The RAM shortage may not be the exact cause of the Steam Deck going out of stock
It’s easy to blame the RAM shortage for the Steam Deck going out of stock, because it’s been the main cause for the majority of issues surrounding stock and prices of all kinds of consumer electronics and the components that make up gaming PCs. From RAM, to storage, to GPUs, the AI industry’s instatiable hunger for memory and graphics cards has caused surges across all kinds of product categories.
It seems likely, then, that the Steam Deck suddenly going out of stock completely would be the next thing to fall because of low inventory on RAM kits and sky-high prices for the kits that remain available. It’s also worth noting that the stock issues are reportedly only hitting the US. Other regions are reported to have some available to buy. So, this might just be a US thing, even if the RAM shortage is to blame for the lack of inventory.
Could this lead to higher prices once stock returns?
That’s entirely possible. Kotaku reports that analysts and consumers alike are fearing this is a sign of an increase in the price of all models. Valve did confirm that it was going to have to rethink the price of the Steam Machine given the current market conditions, noting that the price of it would go up from what Valve was initially planning.
So, it doesn’t seem out of the question for Valve to increase the price of the Steam Deck, either. Though, it seems like Valve would also announce that kind of thing. Until then, this is probably nothing more than consumers rushing to snag what’s available in fear of having to pay more.
If you had your heart set on a Steam Deck because of Steam OS, there’s always the option of the Legion Go S from Lenovo. Just some food for thought.
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