It has long been known that not even Valve is immune to skyrocketing component prices. Steam Machines were announced with great fanfare last year, and the plan was for them to launch in early 2026, offering an affordable, console-like way to play PC games.
But... no Steam Machines have been released, and the Steam Deck OLED has been sold out for a long time. We still don't know when Steam Machines will be released, but on Wednesday evening, Valve announced that the Steam Deck OLED was finally back in stock for those who wanted to order one, with a small caveat.
Just like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, Valve is now forced to significantly raise the price of its aging hardware. The reason is, of course, "rising memory and storage costs," and the price hike affects both the 512 GB and 1 TB versions. Valve states that the former is increasing from £479/€549 to £649/€779, while the latter is going from £569/€679 to £779/€919.
To put it mildly, this is a fairly significant increase, and at present, there is no indication that component prices are on the way down, quite the opposite.