Steam Deck sells out again despite $300 price hike, meanwhile Intel unveils new handheld chip to counter AMD's dominance

[Daniel Sims]

The big picture: Despite a new price that flirts with the $1,000 mark, the Steam Deck has risen to the top of Steam's sales charts as availability remains intermittent. As the RAM crisis erodes the price advantage of Valve's handheld over Windows-based competitors, Intel has announced its latest answer to AMD's dominant portable PC gaming processors.

Although the Steam Deck's new price makes the pioneering handheld gaming PC far less appealing, it still managed to sell out less than 24 hours after the hike. Shortly afterward, Intel unveiled its Arc G3 series APUs, which bring its new Panther Lake architecture into the portable gaming arena.

Supply constraints amid RAM shortages are the most likely reason behind the spotty availability of the $789 512GB model and $949 1TB variant of Valve's OLED Steam Deck. Still, the cheaper model currently leads the sales revenue ranking on the company's online storefront.

However, observers have noted that the price hike makes the Steam Deck a worse deal than the Asus ROG Xbox Ally. The Windows 11 handheld's $599 base model achieves similar performance, while the $999 ROG Xbox Ally X costs only $50 more than the top-end Steam Deck and features superior specs. Both Asus models also enable higher resolutions and refresh rates, leaving Valve's OLED screen being its last remaining advantage.

For shoppers willing to wait, Intel recently unveiled its two upcoming Arc G3 processors. The company aims to leapfrog AMD's Z2 series with 14-core CPUs based on its 18A process node and new Xe3-based Arc B390 iGPU.

The G3 and G3 Extreme will also continue leveraging Intel's XeSS Super Resolution upscaler, which already delivers superior image quality compared to FSR 3 on AMD-based handhelds. However, AMD announced that its more competitive FSR 4 tech will support RDNA3 hardware starting next month, which might include the ROG Xbox Ally X and similar devices.

Intel also confirmed that G3-powered handhelds will receive precompiled shaders. Like the precompiled shaders available on the Steam Deck and the Advanced Shader Delivery tech for the ROG Xbox Ally (also now rolling out to standard Windows 11 PCs), the feature saves players from needing to compile shaders during gameplay.

Devices featuring the G3 and G3 Extreme will begin shipping over the coming months, starting in June, including MSI's Claw 8 EX AI+ and a new OneXPlayer device. Acer's Predator Atlas 8, coming in October, will feature a 120 Hz 1,920 x 1,200 IPS panel with variable refresh rate support, up to 24GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and Thunderbolt 4 support.

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Steam Deck sells out again despite $300 price hike, meanwhile Intel unveils new handheld chip to counter AMD's dominance

 

[The Talking Tech]

It seems like that's the new moronic trend...the higher the prices the more it would sell.

This new generation of compulsive buyers and their shopping addiction ruined everything for the rest of us.

 

[texasrattler]

Course it sold out, anyone with $ can buy it. That isnt your average person or gamer.
Something selling out doesn't matter much as it could have simply been companies buying up stock and not just individual people.

 

[VariableSpike]

It seems like that's the new moronic trend...the higher the prices the more it would sell.

This new generation of compulsive buyers and their shopping addiction ruined everything for the rest of us.

Or its scalpers with bots set tk buy supply as it arrives, especially since it disappeared quickly, and so the supply will not have been big

 

[yRaz]

It seems like that's the new moronic trend...the higher the prices the more it would sell.

This new generation of compulsive buyers and their shopping addiction ruined everything for the rest of us.

What isn't understood is that people have fixed budgets to buy gaming hardware on. In many cases, the steam deck the best people can afford to spend on gaming. The extra $50-100 people had to spend on the next teir up is gone because the next teir up disappeared $2-300 ago. You can dock a steam deck and use it as a PC.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

What isn't understood is that people have fixed budgets to buy gaming hardware on. In many cases, the steam deck the best people can afford to spend on gaming. The extra $50-100 people had to spend on the next teir up is gone because the next teir up disappeared $2-300 ago. You can dock a steam deck and use it as a PC.

If people have fixed budgets then why is stuff selling out despite price hikes? That doesn't make any sense as an argument.

Simpler answer: there are a lot more people out there making a lot more money then you think.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Key Qs:

How many units sold at those higher prices?

What was the split between people with money, people panicking prices will go even higher, and scalpers convinced they will go higher?

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

What isn't understood is that people have fixed budgets to buy gaming hardware on. In many cases, the steam deck the best people can afford to spend on gaming. The extra $50-100 people had to spend on the next teir up is gone because the next teir up disappeared $2-300 ago. You can dock a steam deck and use it as a PC.

If you have a fixed budget for gaming devices then there are better deals than the $789 Steam Deck, no shortage of laptops or mini-PCs with better specs for about the same price, or less, if you look around (or even other handhelds; Legion Go S is on sale for $549 at Woot right now). It is also still possible to build a desktop that is much faster than the $789 Deck, for less. You have to really want the handheld ability to choose a Steam Deck over one of those.

Here is the el'cheapo desktop build:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3WKDqd

 

[Endymio]

It seems like that's the new moronic trend...the higher the prices the more it would sell.

It's not a new trend. The technical term is "negative price elasticity", and it's common among luxury goods, most particularly perfumes. There have been multiple cases of a fragrance that failed to sell at $10/oz but flew off the shelves at $400/oz.

This new generation of compulsive buyers and their shopping addiction ruined everything for the rest of us.

Nope. I know how devastated you are to miss out on this new toy, but the massive revenues flowing into the semi industry are driving an unprecedented expansion of not just manufacturing capacity, but R&D as well. In 2-3 years when the glut arrives and prices crash, will you give credit where credit is due?

 

[Hecate91]

It seems like that's the new moronic trend...the higher the prices the more it would sell.

This new generation of compulsive buyers and their shopping addiction ruined everything for the rest of us.

The compulsive buyers, even those on a limited budget are buying based on FOMO have ruined buying hardware for everyone else.
There is a lot of scare of buying it now or else it might be more expensive later, however buying it now means companies think everyone is fine with paying higher prices, we've seen this with the price of GPU's that were affected by crypto, despite the crash and supply back to normal, prices never recovered.

 

[Kashim]

Nope. I know how devastated you are to miss out on this new toy, but the massive revenues flowing into the semi industry are driving an unprecedented expansion of not just manufacturing capacity, but R&D as well. In 2-3 years when the glut arrives and prices crash, will you give credit where credit is due?

You don't know what will happen 2-3 years, no one does in the currently unpredictable tech sector. Expansion and increased R&D sounds great in theory, but everything else you stated is just speculation and wishful thinking. A lot of people can't afford to simply wait things out and hope prices will crash at some point. Obviously prices will normalize at some point in the future, we just don't know when.

 

[Endymio]

You don't know what will happen 2-3 years, no one does ... everything else you stated is just speculation and wishful thinking.

Tell you what. I'll bet you any sum you care to wager that my prediction is far more accurate than yours. Techspot can even hold the stakes. Deal?

 

[jbright]

The Steam Deck going from the best value in handheld gaming to a $949 device in just a few years is not a timeline I expected. The crazy part is that people are still buying it.

 

[Subset6]

It's supply and demand, simple as that. The rampocalypse caused a shortage, the demand was still present with folks constantly looking for a steam deck. Some inventory became available and it sells out, what's the big mystery?

 

[The Talking Tech]

What isn't understood is that people have fixed budgets to buy gaming hardware on. In many cases, the steam deck the best people can afford to spend on gaming. The extra $50-100 people had to spend on the next teir up is gone because the next teir up disappeared $2-300 ago. You can dock a steam deck and use it as a PC.

Fixed budgets doesn't mean buying regardless of the price hikes, a fixed budget means a limitation on budget....

making excuses for the compulsive buyers is not a justification.

 

[Hecate91]

It's supply and demand, simple as that. The rampocalypse caused a shortage, the demand was still present with folks constantly looking for a steam deck. Some inventory became available and it sells out, what's the big mystery?

The big mystery is where the actual shortage is, RAM and SSD's are still plentiful from retailers, the problem of course being everyone is price gouging it out of any sane budget.

The amount of FOMO and panic buying in the PC gaming market is ruining the hobby for everyone else.