With the Steam Summer Sale 2023 now in full swing, and with a big discount on the Steam Deck, it has risen back up the Steam charts. It's not a big surprise really, especially the top end model at a 20% discount marking the price down from £569 to £455.20. That's a pretty huge saving on one of the best PC handhelds around.
Looking over the stats today that Valve publishes, globally the Steam Deck has moved from fifth to first place. In the UK all models are currently listed as out of stock too, although they were all in stock yesterday when the sale went live.
Check stock in your own country here, or on Komodo for certain regions in Asia.
For the UK, this likely stings a little for people who were about to purchase, as the 64GB and 256GB model have been constantly out of stock for some time now. Valve did not reply to my previous email asking about plans for increasing stock on those models in the UK.
Good news for Valve though as it shows how ridiculously popular the Steam Deck remains. Even before the sale, it has been consistently in the Top 5 on the global sales list. The list is by revenue though, not units sold, but when you note that it's up against games that sell multiple hundreds of thousands (and millions at times) — they're shifting a lot for what is still quite a niche device overall.
Did you pick one up?
I have both the official one and the first of the upgradeded docks from JSAUX and well, both are good! I honestly can't really find much difference between them, except for in the firmware. The official dock can upgrade its firmware directly from the Steam Deck and it happens pretty seamlessly, while the JSAUX one requires plugging it into a Windows PC - which I probably won't ever do, so I'm using the official one. Plus, the official fits the dbrand Killswitch case just slightly more securely (with the dbrand adapter, that is).Steam Deck 64 + NVME is the way to go imo.
Come to think of it, how's the dock? Or is it better to still get a 3rd party one?
The one with an M.2 slot does look pretty inviting though, so if you have a need for that extra storage, I'd recommend it.
It's also nice in bed!I'm playing Chorus in bed on the Deck right now.
You do go to bed, don't you? ;)
Don't get it if you can't afford it at the moment, but yeah this device is pure magic.
Also, unfortunately the more expensive anti-glare etched glass is awesome as well.With the discount it's less than what I originally paid for the middle model.
It's also nice in bed!I'm temped to make a joke about it being the top marital aid.
It's really nice to see it being discounted and selling out. The Ally might have better specs but if somebody offered me a swap for my Deck I'd take a pass on that.
ideally it would be good if it sold well for another couple of years or more and we saw more devs target the platform.
Other companies are directly selling their handhelds in AU/NZ to customers, I don't really know whats going on with Valve since everyone around us can buy them.
The SD here in Australia can be had for a large mark up with no warranty because their all imports.
Other companies are directly selling their handhelds in AU/NZ to customers, I don't really know whats going on with Valve since everyone around us can buy them.
Agreed. The ROG Ally is actually cheaper here than the Steam Deck. And the Ally is sold by official retailers. The Steam Deck is only sold by parallel importers ("grey market") and drop shippers, and it isn't clear where they are getting their stock from. In USD terms it's over US$900.
I will either buy the Ally if community Linux support improves, or buy the Steam Deck when it is available. Whichever happens first. :)
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