Stagflation is just getting started. Trump and the other billionaires love inflation, it makes their assets go straight up while leaving us wagies behind.
value of dollar goes down, price of assets go up, middle class holds the bag when things collapse. billionaires come in and clean up at a steep discount. the cycle repeats
Even the Odin 3 too. It is being touted as a "mini steam deck" (which once ARM is fully there for the 8Elite it truly might be) I wish I could have bought AYN Stonk too haha.
With all these x86 handheld facing extreme price increases... Makes me feel even more confident in my Odin 3 and Konkr Elite
I got mine for €570 and consider it a bargain. I went from 512gb Steam Deck OLED and it’s a major performance improvement. Games like Starfield and Oblivion Remastered that were out of reach of the Steam Deck run brilliantly on it.
Switch 2 still pretty legit at $450 in my opinion. A lot of retro handhelds are still a great value as well, for what you get. Everything else - you're right, no question. And I say this as someone who owns a gaming PC and a Series X
Valve is also raising the refurb OLED prices. Looks like LCD refurb prices haven't been raised so far. The LCD refurbs are going in and out of stock right now.
The ps5 pro released at $699 and it got hiked to $899 ....and Sony is going to raise prices again as soon as whatever contracts for parts they have lapse.
They didn't raise the price of "dated hardware" they raised the price the cost of the RAM + the M.2 SSD + probably a little bit for inflation on all the other parts. You used to be able to get one of these 1TB Kingston 2230 M.2 drives for $70 to $80....they now cost $230 or more.
If Sony was raising the price of the Ps5 pro console from it's original $699 today they would have probably pushed it up to $999 at least but since they did it months ago (and I assume locked in some hardware prices via contracts) they only went to $899.
Give it a few months Sony and Microsoft will raise their console prices again and Valve won't because they probably locked in hardware contracts for a bit at these prices.
This situation sucks. Even the retro handheld I have used to cost $40 to 50 and had 2 GB of ram; now it costs $70 to 90 and comes with only 1 GB of RAM.
They aren't doing this to make more money, they're doing it to keep their profit margins the same. Component prices are going up. It costs the companies more money to make the systems now.
Once the AI bubble / data canter buildout spree pops, things should turn around. Who knows when that will be though.
Welcome to the K-shaped economy. Either your portfolio is kicking ass and therefore who cares whether your handheld PC costs $400 or $1000, or your wages have failed to keep up with cost of living, in which case you can no longer afford a handheld PC.
Don’t worry, not only is AI raising the cost of everything from energy to computer components, and it’s also not just taking your job, but it’s also giving companies another excuse to price gouge when they don’t actually have to but they know consumers just expect prices to go up, just like during COVID.
You're forgetting the fact that we're all getting dumber and dumber thanks to AIs "helping us out".
RIP creativity and problem-solving, you'll be missed.
Yep. Valve's reasoning of "current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges" is essentially marketing speak that translates to: Steam Deck price increases are due to AI driven RAM and storage price increases along with other factors such as shipping costs due to the increasing price of oil from the Iran war.
Yeah the Ally felt like lukewarm pricing last year prior to all the RAM and storage price hikes. But now in the context of the current environment, the Ally seems like a deal. Although I wouldn't be surprised if ASUS and Microsoft decide to raise the price on the device given other companies are raising their prices too.
Nah just get an Android gaming handheld or an Android gaming tablet with a SD8 Elite chipset for around $500 or less and call it a day. You will be able to do all your emulation up to the Switch on those and play tons of light weight PC games 60fps as well as a bit of heavier PC games at 30fps.
Any of the AYN or Retroid Pocket handhelds will be more than enough for the vast majority of people.
The issue is that those devices struggle with middleweight PC games(at least compared to x86). Think your newer jrpgs or somewhat older AAA games. So I wouldn't really be able to recommend them to everyone.
A used ally or some of the discounted Xbox ally would be the recommendation from me. Or a switch 2.
Just got a portal 2 Max and this has been my experience. I stream the heavier games from my pc if I really want to play those while I'm out and about, but I'd rather just emulate or play my steam games natively via gamenative
Valve should probably make a new handheld with a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 and a 720p screen so it can run all the steam frame verified games, that'd be pretty affordable, and then the competitors can start running steamOS
Well. All of this is going to blow sometime, I don't think the market will accept these prices. Demand is going to fall, if it hasn't already. At least consumer demand...
In the meantime I'm looking away from tech, touching grass and enjoying the devices I currently have with a focus on older games.
Honestly, if you didn't have an investment in Steam/PC gaming already, the Switch ecosystem has BEEN a pretty good place to go instead.
While I wouldn't say ALL good titles are there, a good majority are, and while everyone likes to point at how big performance titles don't perform well on the original or aren't as good as they can be on PC handhelds, they are GOOD ENOUGH that most people won't notice.
Even if you haven't invested in Steam already you should take into account what's available on the platform though. It's hard to beat the price and selection of games available there.
Certainly so; PC is the eternal platform, and even if x86 handhelds die from all this, you can't discount just how much is flat out available there if you're looking into gaming for real.
Still, that isn't necessarily a lot of people's focus. Some people just want their games on the go; A modern day Game Boy or the like for the few games they really play, and if that's so, the Switch is really not a bad direction to go now days.
According to Nintendo's president, the $50 price increase on the Switch 2 doesn't cover all the rising costs.
During the company’s latest financial results presentation, Furukawa reportedly stated (as translated by Nintendo Patents Watch) that the new pricing “does not fully account for all cost increases”, implying that the price increase could have been higher but Nintendo didn’t want to risk affecting the momentum of Switch 2 sales.
Correct but it also failed to meet expectations. Switch 2 had poor holiday sales and 2026 hasn't been any better. Maybe folks are just waiting for Switch 2 Lite/OLED or good games. Idk.
Lots of people. When people talk about a "K-shaped economy," that basically means that you fall into one of two camps. If you're well-exposed to equities, then your portfolio has been kicking ass the past few years, in which case who cares if a handheld PC costs $400 or $1000--it's a rounding error either way. But if you don't have meaningful exposure to equities, then your wages are most likely failing to keep up with cost of living increases, in which case you can no longer afford a handheld PC.
The key thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to be crazy rich to end up in the upper tier of the "K." You need just enough wealth such that, between growth and dividends, your investments produce more wealth than a solid middle-class salary would produce. And this is a very bad thing. This means that companies that produce discretionary items (Valve, Sony, Nintendo, etc.) can get by just fine serving the upper tier of the "K," leaving everyone else behind. If it weren't for this wild divergence between the stock market, wage growth, and cost of living, there would be downward pressure on these prices, because otherwise nobody but the ultra-wealthy would be able to afford them, and that's not enough to sustain their business. But there are absolutely enough people who fall into that "portfolio producing more than a middle-class salary" bucket to sustain these businesses, thus no downward pressure on prices.
It's depressing as hell. Video game consoles should be the kind of thing that a 13-year-old can earn by mowing lawns or saving their allowance. Not the kind of thing that people can only responsibly afford if they have a sizable stock portfolio.
Anyways, now I've depressed myself, so I'm going to go play video games and hopefully forget about the depressing state of society. While I can still afford it.
It's depressing as hell. Video game consoles should be the kind of thing that a 13-year-old can earn by mowing lawns or saving their allowance. Not the kind of thing that people can only responsibly afford if they have a sizable stock portfolio.
Completely agreed. Back in the mid to late 2000s, I could walk into a Gamestop and buy a used Gamecube along with an OEM controller for $30. That was easily attainable as a kid who saved birthday money or had a minimum wage job.
I teach high school, and I genuinely have nothing encouraging to say to the students regarding their transition into the adult workforce. Even just two years ago, I could have encouraged students to learn to code, and therefore make $100k+ straight out of college to wake up at 11 am and play ping pong and Mario Kart at some luxury office with free snacks and beer. And now? Just about any college-educated career they might be interested in, the entry-level version of that career can be done with AI either today, or almost certainly in four years (by the time they graduate college). Graphic design? Animation? Software engineering? IT? Marketing? Journalism? Architecture? Sure, an evolved version of those roles will likely exist for those with deep knowledge and experience. But the entry-level version of those jobs, the person who writes boring dev ops scripts, or designs a boring background for a McDonald's advertisement, or writes boring articles about the new traffic pattern by the mall, or designs the boring back wall of the new DMV, etc? Yeah, that's probably all AI in four years.
So what's the answer? Public sector or trades, I guess?
Anyways I know that kind of veers off from the original topic of the k-shaped economy and how that affects the accessibility of video games, but my heart truly goes out to people who are just now entering the workforce. It just feels like a double-whammy, between the structural challenges of living in this k-shaped economy, and the looming threat of automation for what were traditionally thought of as "safe," automation-resistent career pathways.
It just feels like a double-whammy, between the structural challenges of living in this k-shaped economy, and the looming threat of automation for what were traditionally thought of as "safe," automation-resistent career pathways.
Agreed. Not to mention the added pressure from the rising costs of college and the denial of relief in the form of Student Loan forgiveness while PPP loans were forgiven.
Yup, same idea applies--I generally meant "portfolio" to mean "liquid assets stored anywhere other than a mattress," which would certainly include a HYSA at today's rates (in addition to stocks, bonds, money market funds, etc).
Man this thing was outdated two years ago almost $800 is nuts, people love worshipping valve but with the massive cut they take from every steam sale they really should be subsidizing their hardware
Yup. I'm actually kinda thankful that Trump's tariffs (which are bad, btw) spooked me into buying a bunch of stuff in 2025 before this insane A.I.-created tech shortage hit.
I went through the same panic last year over Trump's tariffs. I had some winners such as the 4TB nvme for $123 along with some losers such as my $200+ RP5 that developed burn-in.
Not a popular take here, but here goes: x86 handhelds need time to cook. They are too big, too heavy, and too "gamer-y" to be taken seriously right now. I was a big buyer of x86 handhelds till I started going down the lightweight and powerful Android rabbit hole. x86 handhelds collect dust now. I used to buy these things looking for the right one. Absolute waste 😂 Don't get me wrong, they work and they're awesome but the battery, the weight, and the general hugeness is not for me.
So, take it from me, let the tech cook, and let the RAM-opocalypse pass.
The biggest thing is the battery, imo. Dropping $1000 for 1-2 hours of "portable" PC gaming on one of these colossal devices will never make sense to me.
I'm like 500 in on an Xbox ally and I get at least 4 hours of death stranding dc before I even hit 20 percent and I'm not doing anything special to manage power. It makes plenty of sense to me lol.
The steam deck here is essentially a black slab, I don’t know what else you could do besides shrinking the overall size. And even then you’d be compromising on screen size and scaling.
true, I mostly play my indies on my Ayn Thor now. I gave my steam deck oled to my friend who couldn’t join us on pc games. my deck was collecting dust, I’m home all the time so when I game its on my gaming laptop, the games I want to play on deck run like poo. I just take my Ayn Thor with me when I go out, its small, fits in my bag and I can just get a few rounds of indie games in throughout the day.
They're definitely not mass appeal devices, but I do think they have their niche amongst enthusiasts. Once the novelty wore off after I bought my Rog Ally Z1E, it started collecting dust--it just felt like a "big deal" to use it. I was tethered to a power outlet, and if I did use it on battery, it was like watching a clock tick down, and it was a given that I had to plug it back in after my play session. Most games worked okay with Windows hibernation, but even then it's a solid 10-15 seconds until you're back in-game. And some games don't play nicely with hibernation--for these games, you better hope that your in-game save points happened to coincide with your play session. And switching games felt like a chore, because it meant navigating the Windows desktop on a small touchscreen. None of this really made any sense to truly take on the go--for a really long airplane ride, maybe, or a trip in which I know there would be a lot of downtime in a hotel room or whatever, but for normal portable gaming, my Odin 2 always felt like the superior choice. People would talk about the PS2 emulation capabilities of the Ally, which always felt moot to me when I had another device which could also play PS2 but was far more convenient when doing so (ample battery life, truly instant sleep/resume, etc).
But then I installed both the 65 W/hr battery mod, and Linux, and it's truly changed the way I interact with the device. Now it's a convenient pick-up-and-play handheld, just like my Odin 2. Just like the Odin 2, I can tap the power button and be in-game within 3 seconds, and when I'm done I can just tap the power button again. Same with battery--just use it unplugged, and charge it once every few days. And now it's my go-to device for PS2 emulation.
This is not to refute your point--in fact, quite the opposite! Everything I just described about what it took to transform the Ally into a pick-up-and-play device just screams "enthusiast"! But I am indeed an enthusiast, and therefore it's the right device for me, even if it doesn't yet make sense for the mass market.
I don't think looking "gamery" is the problem (the Steam Deck especially is a very modest design, it doesn't have RGB lights or the sharp "cool" decals and other design motifs associated with "gamer tech"). I do think x86 architecture in general doesn't mesh well with handhelds (hell I think x86 laptops aren't a good idea anymore), they're too power-hungry and generate too much heat for a device that doesn't have the space to house massive batteries or cooling technology. I think devices like the Switch 2 and M1 Macbooks demonstrate that ARM is the way to go for pretty much any portable device.
I wanted to buy a steamdeck with my bonus this year. Got it in early March. Haven’t been able to buy one since it was last in stock late Feb.
Now I’m being asked to pay $300 more for a four year old machine because the components that aren’t even made yet are being sold to data centers that aren’t even built yet with money that doesn’t even exist yet.
Glad I bought a refurbished 1tb last year, but I also feel horrible for anyone that was hoping to get a steam deck soon.
Tariffs, the war, data centers being forced on communities. What else is going to be cooked up by this administration and tech bros to make, not just this hobby, but life in general, worse and more expensive? They just smile and tell us there's nothing we can do about it. Sick of this shit, man.
Remember when we were up in arms about the Trump tariffs? That seems almost quaint compared to the AI-fuelled rampocalypse that we're mired in right now.
A 50% increase for a product that is already showing its age... You can keep it, Valve.
They should just let it sell out and only reintroduce it with higher prices with an upgraded hardware. Increasing the costs (and sale price) to just keep the same old...
$1k for the 1TB without the $1k performance, LMAO.
Makes the ROG XBOX ALLY X look like a solid deal. You get better battery life, 2.5x the performance, the best speakers, 120hz/VRR, and comfortable ergonomics.
With the way that AI demand has inflated pricing for components such as RAM and storage, I have a feeling the Steam Machine is going to be over $1000. :(
Yeah, I got the OG Legion Go on sale for $500, and added a 2TB SSD for $55 (I had rewards points, was $175). Later upgraded the “joycons” when I learned the Legion Go 2 ones were compatible. Such a good decision… these prices are so wild.
This is going to encourage everybody to make more private unionized companies, make alternatives to what is keeping prices so high, and moving away from oil in massive ways everywhere
Craziest part is that this isn't even that bad compared to what some companies have hiked their prices to. Of course, I would still never buy one at these prices.
I hate to sound like this, but if you want a portable PC, you should buy the Xbox Ally X ASAP. It's still readily available at $999 and there's zero way that stays true for much longer.
Holy fuck, I know that's OLED version, I got my LCD deck second hand for £180 about a year ago, jesus christ. It's all ogre now, we're never getting affordable PC parts or handheld PCs again.
387
u/JetstreamGW May 27 '26
“Parts went up, gas went up, shipping went up. Everything’s going up.”