HANDHELD NEWS – The Steam Deck OLED has sold out again in North America less than 24 hours after Valve replenished stock, despite a steep price increase. The 1TB model now costs $949, while availability remains unstable because of ongoing memory and storage shortages.

Valve sharply increased the price of the newly restocked Steam Deck yesterday, pushing the 1TB model to $949 – a nearly 50% increase. It would have been easy to assume that nobody would rush to buy the handheld at that price, but that assumption turned out to be wrong.

Less than 24 hours after Steam Deck stock returned at its new price, the device sold out again in North America – or at least began selling out intermittently. The Steam Deck store page now states that Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages. PC Gamer’s writer ran into that directly: when he first started writing, both models were listed as out of stock, then around 20 minutes later the 512GB version appeared again with an estimated shipping time of 3-5 days. After another refresh, it was out of stock once more.

That situation may continue for some time. As noted by Ars Technica, AI-fuelled component shortages remain a real issue, and the problem may get worse. Valve also has another machine to supply: the Steam Machine is still expected to debut sometime in 2026, meaning at least part of Valve’s hardware inventory will likely have to go toward that device as well.

Exactly how many Steam Deck units have sold since Valve brought them back into stock is not known, but the situation raises an interesting question. If Valve can keep selling the handheld even at these prices, what motivation does it have to bring prices back down when component costs eventually drop? Of course, that depends on component costs actually returning to something resembling normal – and that is far from guaranteed.

According to Deck Scan, which tracks Steam Deck availability in the US, UK, Europe and Australia, limited stock is still available in some other regions. Anyone determined to buy one will have to keep refreshing and hope for luck. In Australia, the older LCD model was still available, and its price had not been changed.

Source: PC Gamer