For a few glorious years, the $399 portable gadget can run almost anything you’d like to play. In 2022, Steam Deck finally made PC gaming manageable again affordable. I played a lot Elden Ring on the Steam Deck, agape that such a rich world could fit comfortably between my two hands.
Today, that Steam Deck experience starts at $789 — nearly double the price.
Similarly, the Nintendo Switch originally cost $299 – but after the development of Nintendo’s Switch 2 and “changes in market conditions,” the starting price of today’s Nintendo handheld game will soon be $499, on top of the PS5’s cost of less than the original disc.
You might say so: isn’t everything more expensive now? Welcome to RAMageddon, tariffs, and rising oil prices because of Trump’s war on Iran. And I can’t fully blame Nintendo or Valve. Heck, I thank them for being among the last to raise prices.
“Console gaming continues its slow and steady march toward becoming a niche, luxury good,” colleague Andrew Webster wrote earlier this month, pointing out how Sony and Microsoft have raised prices repeatedly and that Nintendo was one of the last to hold back. (You also wrote that everything about buying games is getting more confusing and expensive – and remember when game consoles used to go down in price instead of up?)
Meanwhile, desktop PC gamers are starting to worry their hobby may no longer be affordable, now that RAM and storage prices have skyrocketed and every chipmaker is chasing AI servers. (Nvidia is no longer an official gaming company.)
But the handholds hit differently. It was supposed to be a more affordable option for consoles and PCs, and I can’t help but feel sad that they have such a short time in the full sun.
There wasn’t even enough time for a real Valve or Nintendo competitor to emerge – no other manufacturer ever challenged them on price, and they left the market accordingly. When Microsoft finally woke up to the Steam Deck threat to push Windows gamers towards Linux, it did it for $1,000 instead of $400, calling the Xbox Ally X a PC instead of a console.
At $789 instead of $399, the Steam Deck may no longer be a threat to Microsoft’s dominance over Windows gaming. For those with cash to spare, it makes the $1,000 Microsoft / Asus Xbox Ally X look good, considering how much power you get for that price and how Microsoft keeps plugging away at its fixes.
Every other portable gaming PC worth its salt costs more than that now: the Lenovo Legion Go S nearly doubles its launch price at a staggering $1,579.99, the Legion Go 2 costs nearly $2,000 for the same chip as the Xbox Ally X, and a leaked retail listing suggests Intel’s new handheld platform won’t be too cheap. The MSI Claw 8 AI Plus went from $1,000 to $1,299 (although I still see it selling for “only” $1,099).
At these prices in today’s world, we are no longer talking about the same type of product. It is no longer “you can try holding it by hand and enjoy the joy of playing everywhere.” It’s “you should probably choose something portable instead.”
That kind of zero-sum thinking may affect the value of these handhelds in other ways, too – one of the joys of Steam Deck is how it makes big PlayStation games portable, but Sony will reportedly no longer be able to bring its single-player games to PC. It takes that ball back home.
When I bought my Steam Deck in 2022, I wasn’t sure it would pay off, that I would ever be a handheld gamer again. I already had a well-built PC at home.
But I didn’t have to be convinced. It costs only $400. That’s not pocket change – but it’s not rent, either. I know I wouldn’t have bought a $1,000 handheld back then. I’m tired of doing it now.
