While Valve has already addressed the fact that the Steam Machine will be seeing a delay due to the ongoing shortage in memory and subsequent inflation of RAM prices, it looks like the Steam Deck isn’t safe either. Valve has updated the store listing for the Steam Deck, noting that the OLED version of the handheld gaming PC may see stock issues in some regions owing to memory and storage shortages. It also confirmed halting production of the LCD 256 GB version, with the listing available while stock lasts.
“Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages,” wrote Valve on the official Steam listing for the Steam Deck. “Steam Deck LCD 256GB is no longer in production, and once sold out, will no longer be available.”
The company had previously spoken about memory shortages affecting its hardware line-up earlier this month. Without revealing too many details about its previous and current plans, Valve said that shortages in memory had caused it to “revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing.” While there’s no new launch date, Valve has noted that it plans to release the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and new Steam Controller in the first half of 2026.
“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed,” explained Valve. “But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change. We will keep you updated as much as we can as we finalize those plans as soon as possible.”
While this current memory shortage may affect the Steam Deck for the short term, it might even have a further-reaching impact on the company’s R&D efforts for the handheld system’s successor. However, it is worth noting that Valve has been clear about having no current plans for a Steam Deck 2.
In an interview about how the Steam Deck helped pave the way for the Steam Machine, software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais spoke about how nothing in the current market matches Valve’s needs for a potential Steam Deck successor, at least for now.
“We’re not interested in getting to a point where it’s 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life,” he explained. “We want something a little bit more demarcated than that. So we’ve been working back from silicon advancements and architectural improvements, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what the next version of Steam Deck is going to be, but right now there’s no offerings in that landscape, in the SOC landscape, that we think would truly be a next-gen performance Steam Deck.”
In the meantime, recent rumors have indicated that Sony might end up pushing the PS6’s launch to 2028 or 2029 due to inflating RAM prices.
