Epic Games’ outspoken CEO Tim Sweeney has taken to X to criticize Valve over its latest value hike of the Steam Deck. Valve raised the costs ofits handheld this week, with the 1TB mannequin now costing $949. Even although many consoles have seen their costs soar by $50 to $100 in latest months, that is nonetheless nothing in comparison with the additional $240 to $300 that Valve slapped on the Steam Deck. The will increase have been pushed by the reminiscence and chip shortages stemming from the AI infrastructure build-out, however Sweeney wasted no time criticizing Valve on X for the a lot larger value will increase it utilized.
While his submit initially talked about the numerous rise in part prices, which everyone seems to be affected by, he ultimately ended it with “severe disruptions in the component parts supply chain for megayachts” in an obvious potshot at Valve CEO Gabe Newell’s penchant for superyachts. While Newell’s Valve is behind among the most notable sport franchises in historical past, together with Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Counter-Strike, he additionally has a love for enormous sea-going vessels. Luxury Launches reviews that he owns six vessels, together with the 365-foot (111-m) superyacht Leviathan that he took supply of in 2025, totaling round a billion {dollars} in worth (and never counting the hundreds of thousands he’s spending on upkeep, crews, and different prices). He makes use of the vessels privately, but additionally for marine analysis and ocean exploration.
Valve’s {hardware} is usually designed to compete in opposition to gaming PCs and doesn’t face off with devoted gaming consoles which have their {hardware} prices sponsored by gross sales of gaming titles. So, if we evaluate the 512GB Steam Deck’s $789 in opposition to the Lenovo Legion Go 2 and the Asus ROG Xbox Ally, you’d find that it’s still within the same price range.
As for the rumored Steam Machine, the company hasn’t announced the living room PC console’s price yet, but Valve said that it won’t subsidize it to make its price closer to the PlayStation or Xbox. Instead, it will be priced similarly to other gaming PC builds — and with memory and storage chip prices the way they are right now, it’s possible the Steam Machine may be priced at or above $1,000. But, at the very least, you’d own the hardware you buy, and you can freely replace SteamOS with another operating system should you want to do so.
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