It is Sport Over for the Steam Deck LCD (RIP 2022-2025)

The Steam Deck is useless. Properly, the unique mannequin with a 7-inch LCD is, not less than. Valve has formally discontinued the hand held that opened the floodgates to a gazillion different handheld PCs.

“We’re now not producing the Steam Deck LCD 256GB mannequin,” reads a note on the Steam Deck’s product page. “As soon as offered out, it would now not be obtainable.”

Launched in 2022, the $399.99 Steam Deck LCD was probably the most reasonably priced technique to play PC video games on the go. With its official discontinuation, the most cost effective Steam Deck is now the OLED version with 512GB of storage, which prices $549.99.

Valve hasn’t supplied an official cause why it’s killed the Steam Deck LCD. It could possibly be that gross sales of the entry-level handheld have been cannibalized by the OLED mannequin, which launched a 12 months later in 2023 with a bigger and extra superior 7.4-inch show and a much bigger battery. Or it may merely simply be the newest sufferer of the current RAM shortage that’s driving up the cost of memory and SSDs or making it inconceivable for firms to even procure them for his or her units.

No matter the reason being, the fee to get into the Steam Deck ecosystem simply jumped up by $150. Granted, I do assume the OLED mannequin is best in each means and value the additional money, however I hate that gaming retains getting costlier. This passion used to value much less over time, with {hardware} costs coming down in order that gaming turned extra accessible. However as we’ve seen this 12 months, the inverse is happening.

Costs for handheld PCs are solely climbing. The Lenovo Legion Go 2 begins at $1,100 and the Asus ROG Xbox Ally begins at $600. Earlier than heavy reductions throughout massive gross sales occasions like Black Friday or Prime Day, it’s changing into more durable and more durable to purchase a handheld PC for underneath $500. And even then, the discounts are rarely actually steals. The Steam Deck LCD was the uncommon handheld that, whereas not probably the most highly effective, provided a ton of bang for the buck.

Naturally, all of this has me considerably apprehensive concerning the provide for the upcoming Steam Machine, which is launching in “early 2026.” When the 6 x 6 PC “console” was introduced in November, Valve software program engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais said that it will value “extra according to what you may count on from the present PC market.” Welp, in just a few weeks, the “present PC market” has ballooned to unprecedented price-gouging ranges, all because of reminiscence and storage makers shifting their gross sales to AI firms who’re shopping for up all inventory to energy AI information facilities.