New Steam Deck price hike is very bad news for millions of gamers

Patch Notes is a weekly newsletter bringing you the best of Polygon, sent on Fridays and published on the site on Sundays. You can subscribe here.

Continuing 2026’s most dire trend, the video game hardware landscape became even more expensive this week. Valve announced that it is drastically raising the price of the Steam Deck, raising the 512GB OLED model from $549 to $789. If you want a 1TB model, you’ll now have to shell out $949 — a whopping $300 price increase. It’s ominous news for anyone who was hoping that Valve’s upcoming Steam Machine might be a cost-effective alternative to owning a full-on gaming PC.

The Steam Deck’s price increase is eye-popping, but hardly surprising. If anything, Valve is late to the worst party ever. Xbox kicked things off last year by raising the price of all Series S and Series X models, bringing the standard Series X (disc drive included) up to $650. Sony kept the ball rolling in March with PlayStation 5 price hikes that brought the PS5 Pro up to $900. Nintendo followed suit by raising the Nintendo Switch 2 up to $500, a price that somehow looks like a steal next to the Steam Deck.

What the heck is going on? Corporate greed would be an easy answer, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. The mess partially kicked off last year when President Donald Trump announced a wave of sweeping tariffs that heavily targeted many countries known for manufacturing video game consoles. That hasn’t exactly gone according to plan, but it has created a major degree of uncertainty for hardware makers that still lingers.

The more pressing problem is AI. The price hikes are directly tied to a RAM crisis currently plaguing the computing industry. Long story short: Companies are rushing to build AI data centers right now, and those require a lot of memory to power. There aren’t a lot of memory manufacturers out there, and they could make a lot more money selling specialized parts to data centers than putting chips into consumer products. That triggered a RAM shortage, jacking the price of memory for both your average consumer and the companies making video game hardware. Thus, the price of consoles and handhelds — basically anything that uses RAM — is going sky-high to compensate.

There’s not much that can be done to solve the crisis. The damage is done and the knock-on effects of it could last years. That’s terrible news for players who are already struggling to keep up with $70 games, but it’s also dire for an industry that is in desperate need of relief. With video games costing more than ever to develop, publishers need to reach as large of an audience as possible to actually turn a profit. That’s going to be a daunting task if video game consoles become even more of a luxury item than they already were. The hobby is becoming less accessible than ever, propped up by enthusiasts who already own hardware. Even then, those players can’t avoid an upgrade forever when games like Call of Duty: Warzone are finally ditching last-gen consoles.

The best anyone can do right now is wait it out. It’s an unusual time for the market, to say the least, but there’s hope that the RAM crisis will subside eventually and prices will come back down to Earth. But that’s going to depend on a number of variables, including a slowdown in the tech world’s insatiable AI craze. If you can’t afford to replace your Steam Deck so you can play Mina the Hollower, maybe you can use your new free time to protest a data center’s construction.

Steam Deck just got a massive price hike

Here are all the gory details about the Steam Deck’s new price point.

Even people who already own a Steam Deck are sweating the price increase

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales/Polygon

PC gaming enthusiasts are spiraling over the fact that Valve is just like any other company, Patricia Hernandez reports.

Nintendo World Championships winner is auctioning off his 3DS, and it’s already at $20,000

Photo: Nintendo

Now if you want to see what a really expensive video game handheld looks like…

Plus this:

Image: A24/Everett Collection

• Backrooms is the best horror movie since Weapons: Tasha Robinson praises a very unlikely video game adaptation triumph.
• The Forza Horizon killer isn’t here — yet. Oli Welsh explains why Playground’s open-world racer always comes in first.
• 007 First Light completely retcons Bond as we know him, to great success: Ford James gives IO Interactive’s take on James Bond high marks.
• For All Mankind season 5 ends in tragedy on Titan — and a vision of the future: Miles Surrey digs into the particularly dramatic season finale of Apple TV’s hit sci-fi series.
• The next Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is an anime game about kickflipping trains: Ari Notis catches up with the developers of Denshattack! To learn more about 2026’s wildest game.
• Mina the Hollower understands the art of a great video game secret: Yacht Club Games’ sensational Shovel Knight follow-up might be the game to beat this year.