A $399 Steam Deck once enabled portable PC gaming for several years, including running demanding games like Elden Ring. The current starting price has risen to about $789, nearly doubling the cost. Nintendo’s Switch launched at $299, but later upgrades and market changes have pushed the starting price of today’s handheld experience toward $499. Console gaming is described as moving toward niche, luxury status as Sony and Microsoft have raised prices multiple times and Nintendo has been a late exception. Broader economic pressures such as tariffs, rising oil prices, and related geopolitical impacts are cited as contributing factors, while desktop PC gamers also worry about long-term affordability.
"For a few glorious years, a $399 portable gadget could run almost anything you'd want to play. In 2022, the Steam Deck finally made PC gaming portable and affordable. I played through the vast majority of Elden Ring on a Steam Deck, agape that such a rich world could comfortably fit between my two hands. Today, that Steam Deck experience starts at $789 - nearly double the price."
"Similarly, a Nintendo Switch cost $299 at launch - but after Nintendo's Switch 2 upgrades and "changes in market conditions," the starting price of today's Nintendo handheld gaming experience will soon be $499, more than a disc-less PS5 cost at launch. You might say so what: doesn't everything cost more right now? Welcome to RAMageddon, tariffs, and rising oil prices due to Trump's war on Iran."
"Console gaming is continuing its slow and steady march towards becoming a niche, luxury good," my colleague Andrew Webster wrote earlier this month, pointing out how both Sony and Microsoft have hiked prices multiple times and that Nintendo was one of the last holdouts. (He also wrote how everything about buying games is getting more confusing and expensive - and remember when game consoles used to go down in price instead of up?)"
"Meanwhile, desktop PC gamers are beginning to worry their hobby may never be affordable again, now that R"
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