Between moving upmarket and rising costs due to DRAM inflation, Valve is reviewing its Steam Deck catalog.
Launched in early 2022, the Steam Deck is undoubtedly the portable console that has boosted a market that was, until now, apathetic to say the least. In the space of a few weeks, the craze was such that Valve was no longer able to supply, and shipping times became much longer. However, things quickly returned to normal in September 2022, and Valve was able to capitalize on its success. A year later, it's only natural that a slightly reworked version has been released: the Steam Deck OLED with an OLED panel, of course, but also a slightly larger one, tweaked controls, a larger battery capacity and more storage.
The 256 GB Steam Deck LCD is now out of stock © Valve
This second version of the Steam Deck has tended to overshadow the first, and Valve has now distributed only one version of its LCD variant, the one with 256 GB of storage space. At the time, this version cost "only" 419 euros, making it the most affordable available for this type of machine. Alas, even the best things come to an end, and it's safe to assume that difficult DRAM supplies contributed to the downfall of this LCD variant. Midway through the month, Valve stated on its official machine page: " We are no longer producing the Steam Deck LCD 256GB model. Once sold out, it will no longer be available ".
This promise has been kept, and stocks of the Steam Deck LCD 256GB must not have been very high, because for the past few days, it has simply been impossible to order the beast, which is marked "out of stock". This leaves only two options for buying a Steam Deck, both of which are of higher quality, but also considerably more expensive: the 512GB OLED variant at 569 euros, or the 1TB OLED variant at 679 euros.
