Despite a trade war and rising inflation, the three-year-old Steam Deck hasn’t gone up in price yet. In fact, it just got a pretty major discount. The $400 LCD model will be 20 percent off for the 2025 fall Steam sale. That makes it significantly cheaper than just about every other current-gen gaming device on the market right now, including the 8-year-old Nintendo Switch. It also puts some needed pressure on new PC gaming handhelds launching this holiday.
The Steam Deck 256GB LCD model will be $320 starting September 22. That’s essentially what the refurbished model, currently out of stock, usually costs. The 512GB OLED model is still $550 and the 1TB OLED is still $650 (they come with slightly bigger screens, a higher refresh rate, and better battery life). This week-long discount leads into the Steam Autumn Sale which will kick off next week on September 29 and run until October 6.
It’s not a bad deal at all for one of the most versatile gaming handhelds around. It might just be Valve clearing out old inventory as it phases out the older LCD models entirely, but it comes as every other platform squeezes players more and more at the checkout line. The Xbox Series X/S just got its second price hike this year, the PS5 all-digital is now $100 more than it was at launch, and even the original Switch recently went from $300 to $330. At this rate, it’s hard not to feel like the $450 Switch 2 might not be far behind.
Then there’s the Steam Deck’s competition in the PC gaming handheld race. We still don’t know how much the new Xbox Ally Rog will be, even though it’s less than a month away from launch. And the Legion Go 2, which costs up to $1350 at the high end ($1,479 for the 2TB model), is both incredibly expensive and incredibly hard-to-get. Lenovo took so many pre-orders it’s already canceling some. That all might be great for “enthusiast gamers” but it’s not likely to actually help grow the overall market for PC gaming or handhelds. There’s only an estimated 5 to 7 million Steam Decks out there in the world right now, and it’s by far the best-selling portable not made by Nintendo.
Source link
