That price increase for aging hardware is ludicrous.
c/NoStupidQuestions style question:
Why is making enough RAM to go around so hard now? I know the cause of it - AI cunts - but what is the actual bottleneck in the production of RAM that means it can’t be pumped out fast enough to meet demand?
There are very few places on earth that are capable of producing the silicon wafers used in RAM. These factories are still producing at the same rate as before but buyers who pay more (large companies with data centers) are buying them so there are fewer left over for normal consumers (hence the high prices). So why not scale up by making the factories bigger or faster? They are, it will take decades to do that because the process is so advanced. Why not just scale out by building more factories for producing the parts? They are, but that too will take decades.
I’m not going to look this up, because I’m expecting that there’s a number of reasons, but you can pretty much point the finger at supply and demand of components, as well as inability for companies to scale production, and the fact this is likely a bubble.
Think about it from the standing of a ram manufacturer. You’re already pumping out as much product as physically possible, or you need components or materials from other vendors. You aren’t just sitting on idle machines, if there’s a market what what you’re doing, you’re going to push as much of it as you can. All of a sudden, you can charge more because there’s a ram shortage, but you can’t scale up your business because with this rise there’s likely to be an equal fall in the not too distant future, and scaling up production is a slow process. Even if you did, there’s a strong possibility that you’d be restricted by other bottlenecks.
It’s a huge business risk for not much reward. Better to take the win, do what you can try maximise it without exposing yourself to potential losses.
Actually this is incorrect. The RAM manufacturers operate as a cartel and purposefully restrict the supply of RAM so they can sell less at much higher margins. They have been caught doing this 20 years ago and they are doing it again but now everyone is buying their excuse.
Correct. They’re also manufacturing slightly less than they did the year prior iirc.
Europe: 512GB OLED went from €
569to €779 (+€210, +37%), and 1TB OLED from €679to €919 (+€240, +35%).I really like the Deck, but I wouldn’t recommend it at these prices, and the price increase is just bonkers even for the crazy times we live in.
What surprises me in all this is that multi billion dollar gaming companies never even considered intervening given how this can easily affect their bottom line.
We joke about companies being okay with everything being B2B but some industries will completely die if consumer spending collapses.
Would be nice if all their selfishness sometimes meant fighting for the consumer they make all their money from.
It’s almost by design. Take personal computing away from the masses. Control what can be done and learned on a cloud device. More control over the masses with the benefit of a cloud computer subscription.
Consumer spending is something like 68% of the US economy. I suspect that’s the case in most countries?
Consumer spending drives the US economy.
The US’s best export, so to speak, is it’s money. People in the US buy more than anywhere. It has a larger consumer market than EU, China, and India combined. That’s ridiculous to think about, a country of 350m outspending 3.5b. As much as I can’t stand trump and think everything is wrong, leveraging the US and it’s buying power is a tactic that makes sense. I wouldn’t even be mad if it was just part of some negotiation, but it coupled with obviously all the rest of the shit kinda changes the light that it’s shown in.
Kinda has to be for wealth to trickle up. I think they might have meant discretionary consumer spending.
Thanks “AI”
All things go up except salaries…
Don’t forget the body count!
The main reason the Steam Deck was popular to begin with was that it was a relatively affordable gaming PC in a handheld form factor. It has been getting less and less affordable as more time has gone on.
Going to be a very tough sell from now on.
At this stage, the price hike of the steam deck is probably more about making the price of the upcoming Steam Box and VR headset look like an easier pill to swallow, and not about actually needing to raise the price of the steam deck.
Could be both, but I think that both RAM and SSDs have gotten so expensive due to the AI bubble that even high volume manufacturers are having to raise prices by an unreasonable amount to stay profitable.
I definitely wouldn’t have gotten one if it was more than the $350 I paid. Although after I got one I would have considered paying more.
Noooo way would I pay $750+
I mean, it was also popular because it was relatively open in a field of closed handhelds. You could play, basically, whatever you wanted on it. Price was a factor as well… but it was never cheap. Just less expensive than other options.
I bought an ally x about a year and a half ago. At the time it commanded a substantial premium over the OLED deck, but it had the specs to back it up. Since then the price gap has closed and Asus has released another version of the Ally. Asus isn’t the only other handheld maker in town and you can install Bazzite or Steam OS on most of the deck alternatives. Unless you want an out of the box experience that doesn’t involve windows, I am not sure the price point for four year old hardware makes any sense.
Not if everyone else goes up too
That doesn’t magically give me money to buy any alternatives with.
All this shit is Sam Altman’s fault, slimy fuck
I wish it was him alone, would be so much easier. This blame goes at least to all other big tech companies
For real. Doesn’t this just push people toward some of the cooler Lenovos, etc?
No.
Lenovo Legion Go prices have jumped by up to $650 in six months
Every Legion Go S and Legion Go 2 device I could find was more expensive than it was last year. Thanks, AI-driven RAM crunch.
Thanks for the correction and especially the link.
I guess that’s on me for not checking in such a long time.
Yeah, this is effecting everything and everyone, not just one or two companies.
I could technically sell the parts of my computer today at a higher price than I bought them at because of all this bullshit.
Depends how long competitors can keep their prices in that range. I assume lenovo have some economy of scale in their favor, but I think they’ll eventually be priced up and out too.
Nah. It’s all relative. If everything goes up accordingly, then steamdeck will remain a good buy.
Or nothing will be a good buy because people won’t be able to afford to get anything.
What about refurbished gaming computer and consoles?
Have you seen the prices of used memory and storage?
I just…
Its such a weird place to be in life to have bought technology years ago and to have it be more valuable now than it used to be. I don’t think I’d would have bought a steam deck at this pricepoint, whereas I bought two at the lower price point (the LED, then the OLED)
Turns out I should have bought an OLED even though I already had the first version…
Protip, anything you want, just in general - get it “now”. Especially if you’re in the US, there will never be a better time. We’ve not yet begun to feel the supply chain impacts from Iran. Shit’s fucked, it’s not slowing down, and there’s no wand that can wave to fix it.
Yeah I got some storage already. I think I’ll get some more if I see a “discount”
Eh, I didn’t go for the OLED upgrade and I’m still stoked about mine.
Neither did I, but lately it’s been docked since I bent a CPU pin on my regular PC and have yet to unbend it, so it’s been a temporary replacement. OLED wouldn’t have made a difference in most of its use time in my case.
Was using mine docked as well for a couple weeks while I waited for my RMAs to go through. Went really well.
Just wake from Bluetooth. Which is honestly crazy they didn’t include it to begin with.
I didn’t know that wasn’t originally possible. I don’t use Bluetooth with it at all though. My headset and the controller I was using both has dongles, and now I use the Steam controller with it, so no change.
The mouse and keyboard are just regular corded ones as well.
My laptop is worth more than i bought it 3 years ago. Strange world.
I was an OG pre-order and this price point would have been a big fat hell nah from me. Even more true 4+ years later.
I was just looking up strix halo prices because I want another processing machine. The framework platform I was looking at last year is 1200 more expensive (just the base price) than last year.
The 128gb variant was $1999 to start with last year… https://frame.work/products/desktop-diy-amd-aimax300/configuration/new
And that’s not counting the NVMe, which also has seen major increases in market price.
I got a 128GB version last year with an 8TB NVMe drive. Was, IIRC, $2,500 at that point.
Now it’s $4,178.
Yeah I saw the price hike and I didn’t even bother going further with the configuration. I could do a major home improvement project at these prices. The only fear I have is that its only going to get worse.
Same, and I too bought the LED and OLED. I sold my LED for $420 (with the new 1 TB SSD from the OLED I bought, added back grips and the original dock) to my friend cause he wanted to get one for his brother.
Same, and I too bought the LED and OLED. I sold my LED for $420 (with the new 1 TB SSD from the OLED I bought, added back grips and the original dock) to my friend cause he wanted to get one for his brother.
I gave the LED one to my partner and now we can play cozy games side by side in bed.
I’m tired, boss.
All roads lead to poverty
Or firebombs and guillotines…
Then we have quick deaths instead of slow ones!
Switch 2 is the “budget” handheld now at $500.
Except games are $80…
It’s been the budget option anyway in value, if not price.
It won’t be until it gets hacked. PC handhelds still have the benefit of being an open system, especially if you install Linux on them.
And Valve has significantly more consumer friendly support than Nintendo, to the point of being tinker support.
If you’re not too worried about getting a Switch 2, you could get a new or mint Switch OLED, hack that, overclock it and load up a shit ton of emulators on it.
I bought a refurbished Steam Deck waaay back before prices got ballistic. Can emulate the Switch 1 quite fine.
Also got a Switch 2 with Mario Kart World for 99 DKK (15 USD) last year (funny story about the price), but hardly use it.
My point it that it was the low end of value. Nintendo is literally scraping the bottom of the barrel IMO.
If Nintendo didn’t have so many good exclusives, it doesn’t make that much sense to get ya.
Prices of everything’s going up and up… guess what’s staying exactly the damn same?
Wages. Nah, dawg. We ain’t buying your shit if you don’t spread the wealth.
NO WAGE ONLY CONSUME
Time to consume the rich.
And somehow weed street prices
You can thank legal weed for that. Oregon weed prices have stayed pretty cool and low for a long while now. Helps that this stuff is pretty easy to grow.
Not much legal weed, were I’m from
Still the price stayed the same since now…nearly 25 years
With good connections or in bulk, it got even cheaper than beforeNot sure how that works out with rising energy prices.
Maybe the switch to LEDs saved us here
Dealers know what’s up. Coke prices have also held steady for decades.
🙏 they keep the service industry running. Bless your local coke plug
I was really hoping to get a steam deck when I got a job after a string of job losses. This sucks so fucking much. Can barely afford the bread, and can only wish to attend a circus.
https://swappa.com/listings/steam-deck
Frankly, I’d recommend just buying a Mint condition Steam Deck from Swappa or eBay. And I’d recommend doing it soon BEFORE these sellers catch on to the price increase.
Can’t imagine it’ll take more than a couple hours. Seeing as your comment is 3 hours old… it’s probably over.
Likewise, I’ve been unemployed for 18 months and have watched as several things I would really like to get have become too expensive anyway.
It has been out of stock since Christmas or something. At least here. I guess they just can’t produce any for a decent price anymore. Pretty sure that goes for most manufacturers. It’s the reality we live in now. Still a bonkers price for hardware that was considered somewhat outdated 5 years ago. The Steam Machine for under $1k feels like a pipe dream at this point.
Wow, the 1TB OLED model costs 919,00€ in Germany. Man this is depressing times.
(the comma is a decimal point)
A small, but important detail. :D I always try to use the correct decimal separator for the unit.
Some years back, I had a friend who had lived in Germany for some time who came to the US and did a cash transfer without thinking at an ATM and couldn’t figure out at first why her account got frozen. She’d used a comma instead of a period when entering the amount of money to be moved.
Omg xD that’s actually horrifying.
I would love to see information about why some countries do that.
It’s called a point.
It is called a decimal separator. Should be obvious why languages that use a point for it would call it “decimal point”. Other languages refer to it as comma.
It really bugged me until I realize it basically means 919 euros AND 0 cents.
Whereas in North America we basically would say $919.99 meaning $919 dollars and 99% of a dollar.
