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

The Steam Deck is lifeless. Effectively, 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 bought out, it’s going to now not be out there.”

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

Valve hasn’t offered an official motive why it’s killed the Steam Deck LCD. It might 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 an even bigger battery. Or it may merely simply be the most recent sufferer of the current RAM shortage that’s driving up the cost of memory and SSDs or making it unattainable for corporations to even procure them for his or her gadgets.

No matter the reason being, the fee to get into the Steam Deck ecosystem simply jumped up by $150. Granted, I do suppose the OLED mannequin is best in each means and value the additional money, however I hate that gaming retains getting dearer. This interest used to price much less over time, with {hardware} costs coming down in order that gaming grew to become 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 large gross sales occasions like Black Friday or Prime Day, it’s changing into tougher and tougher 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 nervous 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 could price “extra consistent with what you would possibly anticipate from the present PC market.” Welp, in only some weeks, the “present PC market” has ballooned to unprecedented price-gouging ranges, all due to reminiscence and storage makers shifting their gross sales to AI corporations who’re shopping for up all inventory to energy AI knowledge facilities.