Valve Steam Deck Drops to $359 for Steam's 20th Anniversary

[AleksandarK]

Since its launch, the Valve Steam Deck gaming console has seen multiple price adjustments. Over some periods, Valve has dropped the prices of its Steam Deck SKUs from the initial launch day numbers. Today, we have information that Valve will lower Steam Deck prices again to celebrate Steam's 20th anniversary. Starting at $359.10 for the base 64 GB model, Valve will also offer 256 GB SKU for $449.96 and 512 GB SKU for $519.20. This is a 10%, 15%, and 20% discount on the original $399, $529, and $649, respectively. The offer will last until September 21st, when the prices revert to normal.

Potential buyers can visit Valve's website here and check for the discounts.



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[Space Lynx]

I still think people should wait for Steam Deck 2 in 2-3 years, but I do love my Deck. SteamOS is awesome. Some games really play nicer on SteamOS than Windows and vice versa, so having a nice desktop and a SteamOS Deck really compliment each other in my experience.

Games that don't work on Windows very well, like say Prototype on Steam, work flawless and place well on Deck. Older games that struggle with compatibility on modern systems also work wonders on Deck so far for me in a general sense. Dishonored was 10/10 on the Deck with 0 screen tearing, for some reason on Windows I get screen tearing in that game and it always ruined immersion for me, not to mention the countless indie games that look like they were made for Deck.

Braid, GRIS, etc look phenomenal on Deck.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

I think when you pay $400 or less for your Steam Deck, you're getting amazing value. I think when you pay more than $400 for any handheld PC you overpaid because you could have gotten a Steam Deck for $400 or less. For much of this year, Valve has been finding any old excuse to list the Steam Deck for sub-$399 and at that price it's a great way to extend your Steam library out to other places. (You get the cheaper model to upgrade its SSD for $50 or less.)

It's a great secondary device. It's not a great primary device, though. I wouldn't recommend buying a Steam Deck and expecting AAA gaming because I think the days of the SD hitting acceptable levels on current gen games is fast coming to an end (or arguably already has come to an end). But if you own a lot of indies, a lot of 360/PS3 or Xbone/PS4 gen games, and you want to play them on the road (or not rebuy them)?

Steam Deck's the ticket.

Buying a Steam Deck saved me a lot of money from rebuying games on Switch when I already owned them on Steam, so I might be a bit biased. Maybe. I've had a good experience and, if you're considering alternatives, you should really check out the Gamer's Nexus video review of the Asus Ally to see how well the Steam Deck is doing at punching above its weight class given the architecture and power constraints it works under.

 

[Space Lynx]

I think when you pay $400 or less for your Steam Deck, you're getting amazing value. I think when you pay more than $400 for any handheld PC you overpaid because you could have gotten a Steam Deck for $400 or less. For much of this year, Valve has been finding any old excuse to list the Steam Deck for sub-$399 and at that price it's a great way to extend your Steam library out to other places. (You get the cheaper model to upgrade its SSD for $50 or less.)

It's a great secondary device. It's not a great primary device, though. I wouldn't recommend buying a Steam Deck and expecting AAA gaming because I think the days of the SD hitting acceptable levels on current gen games is fast coming to an end (or arguably already has come to an end). But if you own a lot of indies, a lot of 360/PS3 or Xbone/PS4 gen games, and you want to play them on the road (or not rebuy them)?

Steam Deck's the ticket.

Buying a Steam Deck saved me a lot of money from rebuying games on Switch when I already owned them on Steam, so I might be a bit biased. Maybe. I've had a good experience and, if you're considering alternatives, you should really check out the Gamer's Nexus video review of the Asus Ally to see how well the Steam Deck is doing at punching above its weight class given the architecture and power constraints it works under.

Honestly I almost used it as my primary gaming device before I built my current PC, all I had was my work laptop and Steam Deck, and that was genuinely enough for me because my backlog is so vast.

That being said, I am glad I have both a primary gaming rig and a Deck now, mainly because I feel WW3 could happen at any moment and being able to own a nice gaming PC may become a thing of the past in the near future (5-10 years), so I wanted to make sure I have at least a decent setup to last me for awhile.

Might sound strange, but we live in strange times.

 

[Chrispy_]

I wonder what proportion of sales the 256 and 512GB models have - the 10, 15, 20% tiered discount implies perhaps that they do not sell equally.

IMO Valve would likely have more success if they made the storage sizes 64GB, 512GB, and 1TB since the "larger storage" variants are way too small for most of the games Valve promotes as "Great on Deck" and you're going to replace it yourself, most likely.

 

[Space Lynx]

I wonder what proportion of sales the 256 and 512GB models have - the 10, 15, 20% tiered discount implies perhaps that they do not sell equally.

IMO Valve would likely have more success if they made the storage sizes 64GB, 512GB, and 1TB since the "larger storage" variants are way too small for most of the games Valve promotes as "Great on Deck" and you're going to replace it yourself, most likely.

you have to be careful with the great on deck green checkmark, god of war is not great on deck, its like 30 fps, play it on a desktop or ps5 instead.

but older games or less demanding games that have the green checkmark, yea they are great, and those games generally don't take up much space. I have 140 games installed on my Deck, 512gb nvme and a 512gb sdcard. a few big games like Detroit Become Human, etc.

 

[Chrispy_]

you have to be careful with the great on deck green checkmark, god of war is not great on deck, its like 30 fps, play it on a desktop or ps5 instead.

but older games or less demanding games that have the green checkmark, yea they are great, and those games generally don't take up much space. I have 140 games installed on my Deck, 512gb nvme and a 512gb sdcard. a few big games like Detroit Become Human, etc.

I'm mostly using mine for indie games that are comfortably under 10GB each, but it only takes one or two AAA games to completely fill the SSD with 100GB installs being increasingly common these days.

I'm replaying a campaign of Dirt Rally 2.0 which runs fantastically at native res, 60fps, and a 12W power limit - very Steam Deck friendly apart from the storage requirements of 160GB!

 

[chrcoluk]

Nice of them in an era when money is tight, I only got mine in august so I kind of feel a little frustrated lol, some people who ordered within last 1-2 weeks on discord are saying they going to try and get a discount by pushing that they will use the 28 days returns and reordering if refused.

I think my 28 days has passed or at least close to it maybe 3 weeks or so, and I also couldnt be bothered for 10%. They already are a good price in my view.

I wonder what proportion of sales the 256 and 512GB models have - the 10, 15, 20% tiered discount implies perhaps that they do not sell equally.

IMO Valve would likely have more success if they made the storage sizes 64GB, 512GB, and 1TB since the "larger storage" variants are way too small for most of the games Valve promotes as "Great on Deck" and you're going to replace it yourself, most likely.

Those models clearly have bigger margins.

The price uplift is currently about 2x the cost of the storage they providing.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I still think people should wait for Steam Deck 2 in 2-3 years, but I do love my Deck. SteamOS is awesome. Some games really play nicer on SteamOS than Windows and vice versa, so having a nice desktop and a SteamOS Deck really compliment each other in my experience.

Games that don't work on Windows very well, like say Prototype on Steam, work flawless and place well on Deck. Older games that struggle with compatibility on modern systems also work wonders on Deck so far for me in a general sense. Dishonored was 10/10 on the Deck with 0 screen tearing, for some reason on Windows I get screen tearing in that game and it always ruined immersion for me, not to mention the countless indie games that look like they were made for Deck.

Braid, GRIS, etc look phenomenal on Deck.

Yeah, I recall Halo MCC not running at all using Windows with a free Gamepass trial, it kept crashing right at the load screen. From Steam using Proton on Linux? Worked perfectly.

 

[stanleyipkiss]

Honestly? I wish I could buy the SteamDeck motherboard in a NUC box. Make it $200 and let me hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Complete with Proton/Steamdeck OS and everything. Just make me a nice console that I can also stick under the TV.

 

[Chrispy_]

Those models clearly have bigger margins.
The price uplift is currently about 2x the cost of the storage they providing.

Margins? What margins?!
Even the 512GB model is sold at a loss.

Like consoles, Valve's business strategy is to profit from an increase in Steam sales and marketshare growth; It's why these things are half the price of the ROG Ally and a third the price of the GPDWin/AYANeo comparisons. I think they are close to the break-even point on the 512GB model, the 64GB and 256GB models are heavily-subsidised MSRPs.

 

[chrcoluk]

Margins? What margins?!
Even the 512GB model is sold at a loss.

Like consoles, Valve's business strategy is to profit from an increase in Steam sales and marketshare growth; It's why these things are half the price of the ROG Ally and a third the price of the GPDWin/AYANeo comparisons. I think they are close to the break-even point on the 512GB model, the 64GB and 256GB models are heavily-subsidised MSRPs.

Ok smaller losses then.

Of course their money is made on software, same as microsoft and sony, no disagreement there.

 

[THU31]

I still think people should wait for Steam Deck 2 in 2-3 years, but I do love my Deck. SteamOS is awesome. Some games really play nicer on SteamOS than Windows and vice versa, so having a nice desktop and a SteamOS Deck really compliment each other in my experience.

New AMD APUs are pretty amazing, so a new Steam deck could be really powerful in a few years. And it would basically use the existing ecosystem, it's not like a console generation (although consoles are designed with full backwards compatibility in mind these days). All of the Proton optimizations should just carry over.

I played around with my friend's Steam Deck and it's a great device, the power consumption is especially mind blowing.
Although personally I don't have much use for it. At home I prefer to game on a TV, and when I go outside I'd rather touch grass.

 

[NC37]

I wonder what proportion of sales the 256 and 512GB models have - the 10, 15, 20% tiered discount implies perhaps that they do not sell equally.

IMO Valve would likely have more success if they made the storage sizes 64GB, 512GB, and 1TB since the "larger storage" variants are way too small for most of the games Valve promotes as "Great on Deck" and you're going to replace it yourself, most likely.

Early on I'm sure the high ends had it better but, given there are companies making the nvme drives more available in the tiny size the SD uses, the lower end may be getting better sales. The biggest weakness of the SD was the drive and now that this has been remedied, why would people that know how to swap, buy anything but the base model?

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Honestly? I wish I could buy the SteamDeck motherboard in a NUC box. Make it $200 and let me hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Complete with Proton/Steamdeck OS and everything. Just make me a nice console that I can also stick under the TV.

Couldn’t you basically do this already with an AMD-based mini PC? SteamOS is a free download. I’ve never given it a try, but maybe I should on a spare system.

 

[Vayra86]

Ordered yesterday at 466 EUR all in for the 256GB. Apparently Volvo also pays the 21% VAT for me AND shipping? Pretty sweet deal.

Now Im browsing and wishlisting a bucketlist of titles to play on it

Honestly? I wish I could buy the SteamDeck motherboard in a NUC box. Make it $200 and let me hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Complete with Proton/Steamdeck OS and everything. Just make me a nice console that I can also stick under the TV.

Buy a dock for 40 bucks and an hdmi cable and you have this.

 

[trsttte]

I still think people should wait for Steam Deck 2 in 2-3 years

Waiting 2 or 3 years for an updated device is pretty absurd, there will always be something better in a few years, you'd never buy anything

storage sizes 64GB, 512GB, and 1TB

They designed and launched the steam deck before the current ssd price utopia, they could easily upgrade the storage but prefer not for whatever reason (margins and so on probably)

Honestly? I wish I could buy the SteamDeck motherboard in a NUC box. Make it $200 and let me hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Complete with Proton/Steamdeck OS and everything. Just make me a nice console that I can also stick under the TV.

You can simply buy a better nuc/mini pc. You just won't get the steam OS (for now at least, it was supposed to be launched as a standalone OS eventually) but you can either install linux and proton yourself or use the modified steam OS recovery image

 

[Space Lynx]

the new steam OS 3.5 came out today for Deck, its main feature was improving colors, can confirm colors look much prettier now, it now covers the entire sRGB space with this update.

 

[Vayra86]

the new steam OS 3.5 came out today for Deck, its main feature was improving colors, can confirm colors look much prettier now, it now covers the entire sRGB space with this update.

Noice I cant wait to hit the deck 1-2 weeks they say...

 

[Chrispy_]

They designed and launched the steam deck before the current ssd price utopia, they could easily upgrade the storage but prefer not for whatever reason (margins and so on probably)

Whilst that's true, the SSD I bought was also older than the Steam Deck - 2232 SSDs have been available at sensible pricing for ages because they've been in use by several laptops prior to the Steam deck. Mine came out of a Lenovo but All of the Surface and Surface Pro models used them. I'm using a 512GB drive now but I initially bought a 256GB SSD out of a broken Surface Pro 4 for £10 ($12). Pretty good way to save myself almost $120 off the $529 model.

When the Steam Deck first launched, 512GB 2230 SSDs were about $100 to buy at retail, now they're $35 new, $20 used, but more importantly, they could update the $649 model with at least a 1TB drive, since those have a retail value of about $65 and Valve won't be paying retail for them.

 

[Luke357]

Whilst that's true, the SSD I bought was also older than the Steam Deck - 2232 SSDs have been available at sensible pricing for ages because they've been in use by several laptops prior to the Steam deck. Mine came out of a Lenovo but All of the Surface and Surface Pro models used them. I'm using a 512GB drive now but I initially bought a 256GB SSD out of a broken Surface Pro 4 for £10 ($12). Pretty good way to save myself almost $120 off the $529 model.

When the Steam Deck first launched, 512GB 2230 SSDs were about $100 to buy at retail, now they're $35 new, $20 used, but more importantly, they could update the $649 model with at least a 1TB drive, since those have a retail value of about $65 and Valve won't be paying retail for them.

Where are you finding 1TB 2230 drives for $65? All the ones I see are $80 or higher.

 

[Chrispy_]

Where are you finding 1TB 2230 drives for $65? All the ones I see are $80 or higher.

I'm converting from the UK. Based on a quick Google Shopping search, the cheapest new 2230 1TB drives from real retailers are a Transcend model for £46 from Flexx.co.uk and a Dell OEM one from Dell direct at £48 but that includes sales tax at 20%.

If you go to AliExpress you can get no-name stuff like "kingmax" from £40.

Realistically, you can find WD SN740 for £60 new and the high-end in the 1TB capacity is something like the Sabrent Rocket for £85.

2230 is far less mainstream than 2280, so you tend to find more options on marketplaces like Amazon/Ebay/AliExpress. Even the big brands like Dell/HP/WD/Samsung don't offer 2230 to consumers at retail so you need to go to B2B distributors unless you pick them up from marketplaces.

 

[Nordic]

You can simply buy a better nuc/mini pc. You just won't get the steam OS (for now at least, it was supposed to be launched as a standalone OS eventually) but you can either install linux and proton yourself or use the modified steam OS recovery image

What NUC would you reccomend? I looked into doing this and I had a hard time finding one that had better GPU performance than the Steam Deck. Those with comparable GPU performance were 2.5x the price of the Steam Deck.

There are several "clones" of SteamOS that more or less copy whatever Valve does to SteamOS. One could have a near identical experience if they wanted it.

 

[Chrispy_]

What NUC would you reccomend? I looked into doing this and I had a hard time finding one that had better GPU performance than the Steam Deck. Those with comparable GPU performance were 2.5x the price of the Steam Deck.

There are several "clones" of SteamOS that more or less copy whatever Valve does to SteamOS. One could have a near identical experience if they wanted it.

The Minisforum NUC-a-likes with Ryzen 7000-series APUs are probably your best bet. They have a 7940HS model with a 12CU RDNA3 graphics offering compared to the Steam Deck's 8CU RDNA2 offering.

It's not cheap though, will be on par with the 512GB $699 steam deck once you add RAM and storage.

You might be better off just buying a small mITX box with a dGPU. A Ssupd Meshlicious isn't a bad option if you have a tiny bit more space, and you can slot a compact GPU in there with 3-4x the performance. The 4060 is very power-efficient if you're after something unobtrusive and quiet, even if it's not the best value.

 

[Zareek]

Honestly? I wish I could buy the SteamDeck motherboard in a NUC box. Make it $200 and let me hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Complete with Proton/Steamdeck OS and everything. Just make me a nice console that I can also stick under the TV.

I love that idea! I dock my Deck a lot and play on a 32 inch monitor. The games don't look as good as they do on my PC but they play well. The deck is so power efficient and sleep mode works so well too. Hell, I get audio issues(dialog is much lower volume than anything else) with Middle-Earth Shadow of War on my PC. No issues at all on the deck and it uses 1/10th the power for slightly less appealing visuals. My backlog is giant so the Deck is great for me. A stand alone, NUC like unit would be amazing!