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Gaming handheld prices are out of control, except for the Steam Deck
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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Steam Deck
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The only companies that can really compete with Valve for scale are MAYBE Asus. And if they just release approximately the same SKU as Valve or one with minor updates they can maybe get some market share but... why would you not buy the Valve one in that case?
So we instead get a case where they leverage something closer to their gaming laptops SKU... and the price goes up a lot. Although, to be clear, 1k for a "gaming laptop" is actually a REALLY good price... which is why gaming laptops are a stupid purchase.
And that mostly just leaves the Aya Neos and GPDs of the world. They more or less paved the way for Valve but they just can't produce (and import) at scale to compete so you mostly get niche SKUs that specifically target a type of gaming (often emulation) or come with keyboards everyone hates and so forth.
Which sucks because I really would like there to be competition to encourage Valve to keep pushing the envelope... and Valve would likely like it so they don't have to release a new gameboy every other year.