The golden age of handheld gaming is already over

For a couple of wonderful years, a $399 moveable gadget might run virtually something you’d wish to play. In 2022, the Steam Deck lastly made PC gaming moveable and reasonably priced. I performed by way of the overwhelming majority of Elden Ring on a Steam Deck, agape that such a wealthy world might comfortably match between my two arms.

Today, that Steam Deck expertise begins at $789 — almost double the worth.

Similarly, a Nintendo Switch value $299 at launch — however after Nintendo’s Switch 2 upgrades and “changes in market conditions,” the beginning worth of immediately’s Nintendo handheld gaming expertise will quickly be $499, greater than a disc-less PS5 value at launch.

You would possibly say so what: doesn’t all the pieces value extra proper now? Welcome to RAMageddon, tariffs, and rising oil costs as a consequence of Trump’s conflict on Iran. And I can’t absolutely blame Nintendo or Valve. Heck, I credit score them for being among the many final to boost costs.

“Console gaming is continuing its slow and steady march towards becoming a niche, luxury good,” my colleague Andrew Webster wrote earlier this month, mentioning how each Sony and Microsoft have hiked costs a number of occasions and that Nintendo was one of many final holdouts. (He additionally wrote how all the pieces about shopping for video games is getting extra complicated and costly — and keep in mind when sport consoles used to go down in worth as an alternative of up?)

Meanwhile, desktop PC players are starting to fret their interest could by no means be reasonably priced once more, now that RAM and storage costs have skyrocketed and each chipmaker is chasing AI servers. (Nvidia isn’t even formally a gaming firm anymore.)

But handhelds hit completely different. They have been alleged to be the reasonably priced various to consoles and PCs, and I can’t assist feeling unhappy they’d such a short while within the full solar.

There wasn’t even sufficient time for a real Valve or Nintendo competitor to emerge — no different producer ever meaningfully challenged them on worth, ceding the market accordingly. When Microsoft lastly woke as much as the Steam Deck’s risk of pushing Windows players towards Linux, it did so at $1,000 as an alternative of $400, pricing the Xbox Ally X like a PC as an alternative of a console.

At $789 moderately than $399, the Steam Deck could now not be a risk to Microsoft’s dominance over Windows gaming. For these with the spare money, it makes a $1,000 Microsoft / Asus Xbox Ally X really look good, contemplating how rather more energy you get at that worth and the way Microsoft retains plugging away at fixing its flaws.

Every different handheld gaming PC value its salt prices much more than that now: the Lenovo Legion Go S is sort of double its launch worth at a staggering $1,579.99, the Legion Go 2 prices almost $2,000 with the identical chip because the Xbox Ally X, and leaked retail listings suggest Intel’s new handheld platform gained’t be less expensive. The MSI Claw 8 AI Plus has gone from $1,000 to $1,299 (although I nonetheless see it on sale for “only” $1,099).

At these costs in immediately’s world, we’re simply not speaking about the identical form of product anymore. It’s now not “you can afford to try a handheld and experience the joy of gaming everywhere.” It’s “you probably have to choose a handheld instead of something else.”

That form of zero-sum pondering could influence the worth of those handhelds in different methods, too — one of many joys of the Steam Deck was the way it made PlayStation’s largest video games moveable, however Sony reportedly gained’t deliver its huge single-player video games to PC anymore. It’s taking that ball and going dwelling.

When I purchased my Steam Deck in 2022, I wasn’t certain it could repay, that I would actually turn into a handheld gamer once more. I already had a wonderfully good homebuilt PC.

But I didn’t must be certain. It solely value $400. That’s not pocket change — however it’s not hire cash, both. I do know I wouldn’t have purchased a $1,000 handheld again then. I’m torn on whether or not I’d now.