Valve Steam Deck Sells Out in 24 Hours Despite Price Hike

The internet has recently been rife with complaints and discussions about the recent price increases to the Valve Steam Deck OLED, which saw prices of the gaming handheld spike by as much as $300. However, that same price increase coincided with the first restock of the Valve Steam Deck in anywhere from two to five months, depending on where you are located. Apparently, this price increase hasn’t had much of a cooling effect on Steam Deck sales, at least not in the US. As spotted by Ars Technica, the Steam Deck OLED is already out of stock in the US, although it remains available in Europe and East Asia via Komodo.

Following the restock, sales of the Steam Deck spiked so quickly that the gaming handheld shot back up to the number-one position on Steam’s Top Sellers list. This does not mean that the Steam Deck sold more than First Light’s 1.2 million units on the game’s launch day, since the Top Sellers chart is ranked by revenue. We saw a similar spike in sales when Sony previously announced an imminent price increase for the PlayStation 5, but the difference there was that Sony gave players advanced notice about the price increase, so there was likely a rush of buyers trying to get in on the pre-increase price. For the Steam Deck, the rush may have been related to the dearth in availability preceding the price increase, but the looming threat of another price increase related to the ever-worsening PC hardware and DRAM shortage.