If you were worried that Valve might increase the price of the Steam Deck, fear not. Co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that the pricing for its portable gaming PC will remain untouched, although the company may look into 'higher end' new models.
During a recent interview, Newell told IGN that Valve has no plans to increase the price of any of the three original hardware configurations for the Steam Deck. "I mean, part of what you do with pricing is you're making a promise to customers. [...] But we wouldn't expect to be adjusting the SKU pricing," Newell said.
That's no surprise in and of itself. Last July, Newell said that hitting the Steam Deck price was "painful" but "critical," noting that the company had to be "very aggressive" with the handheld's cost. Yet the confirmation of no price increase for the current Steam Deck's SKUs is reassuring.
The ongoing chip shortage has been a near-constant negative factor for the industry in recent years. With demand high and supply struggling to keep up, especially in the gaming space, we have seen street prices of graphics cards move higher than the announced MSRPs. Similarly, Analogue announced it had increased the price of its Pocket handheld because of the chip shortage.
Interestingly, Newell said he "would not have guessed" that the $649 Steam Deck model, which includes 512GB of NVMe SSD internal storage and an anti-glare etched glass, had outsold the $399 entry-level model, which has 64GB of slower eMMC internal storage.
According to Newell, the preorder numbers (not disclosed to IGN) and the popularity of the flagship model, has led Valve to think about whether it "should continue to look at higher-end configurations." When asked if Valve was thinking about new Steam Deck models in the future, Newell confirmed as much.
"Absolutely. [...] That's the great thing about the PC market. Right? That it just continues [...] Like a year from now, AMD is going to have better parts. Right? A year from now, all the component suppliers are going to either expand capacity, expand performance, or reduce costs. So, we're absolutely going to ride that as hard as we can. That's part of the thing about being in the PC space is everybody's essentially driving everybody else's price performance improvements over time."
While Valve seems taken aback that the Steam Deck's more expensive flagship configuration has become the more popular model of the three, it's not necessarily all that surprising. PC gaming is pricey these days, especially if you want a more powerful machine. With Steam Deck pricing starting at $399 and capping at $649, even that flagship model could be considered relatively cheap – even with all three models using mostly the same specs (the key differences being internal storage) $649 for a portable gaming PC that can run the latest games is still competitive.
Despite Valve saying that the Steam Deck is future-proofed, there is always room for improvement on the hardware front, especially with how rapidly new technology in the PC market comes out. With demand "a lot higher than expected" as Newell tells us, it would be unsurprising if Valve continued to explore this market.
For more Steam Deck, check out our first impressions on Valve's portable gaming PC.
Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Continue reading...
During a recent interview, Newell told IGN that Valve has no plans to increase the price of any of the three original hardware configurations for the Steam Deck. "I mean, part of what you do with pricing is you're making a promise to customers. [...] But we wouldn't expect to be adjusting the SKU pricing," Newell said.
That's no surprise in and of itself. Last July, Newell said that hitting the Steam Deck price was "painful" but "critical," noting that the company had to be "very aggressive" with the handheld's cost. Yet the confirmation of no price increase for the current Steam Deck's SKUs is reassuring.
The ongoing chip shortage has been a near-constant negative factor for the industry in recent years. With demand high and supply struggling to keep up, especially in the gaming space, we have seen street prices of graphics cards move higher than the announced MSRPs. Similarly, Analogue announced it had increased the price of its Pocket handheld because of the chip shortage.
Interestingly, Newell said he "would not have guessed" that the $649 Steam Deck model, which includes 512GB of NVMe SSD internal storage and an anti-glare etched glass, had outsold the $399 entry-level model, which has 64GB of slower eMMC internal storage.
According to Newell, the preorder numbers (not disclosed to IGN) and the popularity of the flagship model, has led Valve to think about whether it "should continue to look at higher-end configurations." When asked if Valve was thinking about new Steam Deck models in the future, Newell confirmed as much.
"Absolutely. [...] That's the great thing about the PC market. Right? That it just continues [...] Like a year from now, AMD is going to have better parts. Right? A year from now, all the component suppliers are going to either expand capacity, expand performance, or reduce costs. So, we're absolutely going to ride that as hard as we can. That's part of the thing about being in the PC space is everybody's essentially driving everybody else's price performance improvements over time."
While Valve seems taken aback that the Steam Deck's more expensive flagship configuration has become the more popular model of the three, it's not necessarily all that surprising. PC gaming is pricey these days, especially if you want a more powerful machine. With Steam Deck pricing starting at $399 and capping at $649, even that flagship model could be considered relatively cheap – even with all three models using mostly the same specs (the key differences being internal storage) $649 for a portable gaming PC that can run the latest games is still competitive.
Despite Valve saying that the Steam Deck is future-proofed, there is always room for improvement on the hardware front, especially with how rapidly new technology in the PC market comes out. With demand "a lot higher than expected" as Newell tells us, it would be unsurprising if Valve continued to explore this market.
For more Steam Deck, check out our first impressions on Valve's portable gaming PC.
Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Continue reading...
