Europe, Australia, and Asia can still get it while the getting’s good.
Well, that was fast. Less than 24 hours after Valve announced renewed availability of the Steam Deck OLED (at a massively increased MSRP), the handheld is once again listed as “out of stock” in the US and Canada. Spot checks of other regional Steam stores on Thursday morning showed the hardware as still available across Europe and Australia for the time being, as well as in Asian countries through Valve’s sales partner Komodo.
While it’s hard to know from the outside just how many Steam Deck units sold at the new inflated price, those sales were enough to once again boost the hardware to the top of Steam’s Top Sellers list. That list is based on total revenue over the last 24 hours, though, so the $789 Steam Deck could easily have sold many fewer distinct copies than the highest-ranked software on the current list, the $70 007 First Light.
Valve’s Steam Deck store page notes that the handheld “may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages.” But that warning first appeared on the store site back in February, and stock-tracking websites show there have only been exceedingly brief availability windows for Steam Deck purchases between then and now.
That suggests today’s “intermittent” shortage could last for a while, especially as Valve is now likely including preparations for the planned launch of the Steam Machine in its significant reported hardware shipments from China.
For those who can’t wait for a SteamOS-powered handheld, new and pre-owned Steam Deck units (both OLED and non) are selling around or below Valve’s retail pricing on eBay. Lenovo’s SteamOS-powered Legion Go S is still widely available, too, though at recently increased prices from its launch last year. Modders have also recently had some luck installing SteamOS on the Windows-powered ROG Xbox Ally, which is surprisingly still available at its launch price of $600 for the standard version and $1,000 for the beefed-up ROG Ally X.
Source: Ars Technica
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