{"id":52716,"date":"2026-05-16T04:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=52716"},"modified":"2026-05-16T04:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:54:48","slug":"dont-buy-a-marked-up-steam-deck-when-cheaper-options-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=52716","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Buy a Marked-Up Steam Deck When Cheaper Options Exist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The Steam Deck has now been sold out for a few months, and it&#8217;s not clear if or when Valve is going to get more stock in. While it&#8217;s possible that at least some of the &#8216;game console&#8217; shipments the company has been getting in could be handhelds, it&#8217;s possible that Valve just waits until its eventual Steam Deck 2 to ship more handhelds, especially with the Steam Machine seemingly around the corner. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That doesn&#8217;t change the fact that the Steam Deck, even four years after launch, is still one of the best handheld gaming PCs on the market. It&#8217;s understanable if folks want to pick it up, especially because for a lot of people, &#8216;Steam Deck&#8217; is synonymous with &#8216;handheld PC&#8217;. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">As the Steam Deck has been out of stock, however, the prices have only gone up. Right now, picking up a new Steam Deck on Amazon is going to set you back around $1,110 for the 512GB OLED model, which is exactly <em>double<\/em> that handheld&#8217;s list price. You shouldn&#8217;t pay that much for a Steam Deck, and even if you were willing to spend that much on a handheld, something like the Lenovo Legion Go S or the Xbox Ally X will cost about the same, but with a higher resolution display, better performance, and double the storage. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Even if you&#8217;re just trying to find something resembling a Steam Deck for around the same price, the Xbox Ally will have about the same level of performance, but with a more comfortable grip. Although, you will have to use Windows 11, but it&#8217;s at least better now with the Xbox Full Screen Experience. What&#8217;s wild, is that when it came out, the Xbox Ally was compared unfavorably with the Steam Deck, because at the time, Valve&#8217;s handheld just delivered a better value. That just goes to show you how much a product shortage can turn the tables. <\/p>\n<div id=\"233472\">\n<div class=\"jsx-3980863763 catalog-wrapper\"><span data-cy=\"productcard-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"233472\" data-cy=\"solo-product-card\" class=\"solo-product SoloProduct_solo-product__r2_WP\">\n<div class=\"card jsx-722342313 jsx-3341285356 product-card SoloProduct_product-card__JSk8u\">\n<div class=\"product-thumbnail jsx-2285132617 SoloProduct_image__vqG4e\"><img alt=\"ROG Xbox Ally\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-1809694635 jsx-2338608387 expand\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/assets-prd.ignimgs.com\/2025\/12\/08\/asus-rog-ally-deal-block-1765228855812.jpg?width=220&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp&amp;quality=80 1x, https:\/\/assets-prd.ignimgs.com\/2025\/12\/08\/asus-rog-ally-deal-block-1765228855812.jpg?width=220&amp;dpr=2&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp&amp;quality=80 2x\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-2827240024 name balanced\">ASUS ROG Xbox Ally<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<p><button class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button jsx-3381835873 jsx-3347269829 icon-button catalog-upvote SoloProduct_catalog-upvote__FWsVx centered disabled\" disabled=\"\" type=\"button\" title=\"Vote\" aria-label=\"Vote\" data-cy=\"catalog-upvote\"><span class=\"ign-icon icon-rating-like jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"icon-rating-like\" style=\"mask:url(https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/RatingLike.ea885513.svg?cors=1) no-repeat center center \/ contain;background:currentColor\"\/><\/p>\n<p>2<\/p>\n<p><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">There is still a way to get the Steam Deck at a somewhat reasonable price, but you&#8217;re going to have to brave used listings on Ebay. But even then, you&#8217;re still paying pretty close, or more, than the Deck&#8217;s MSRP, and getting it used on top of that \u2013 with no <em>real<\/em> guarantee that it&#8217;ll even work. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">It really is a shame that the Steam Deck is going through this right now. Valve&#8217;s portable gaming PC made me fall in love with handheld PCs in a big way. Just a few months ago I repeatedly preached to folks that I know that the Steam Deck was the most affordable way to get into PC gaming. Hopefully, when the Steam Deck 2 eventually surfaces, that&#8217;ll be true again, but until then, I beg you: just get a different handheld. Don&#8217;t spend these ridiculous markup prices. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jackiecobra\" class=\"link jsx-1337145738 jsx-3925284146 underlined\" data-cy=\"styled-link\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>@Jackiecobra<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/dont-buy-a-marked-up-steam-deck-when-cheaper-options-exist\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Steam Deck has now been sold out for a few months, and it&#8217;s not clear if or when Valve is going to get more&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[788,716,4020,525,3245,22794,748,3418],"class_list":["post-52716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-buy","tag-cheaper","tag-deck","tag-dont","tag-exist","tag-markedup","tag-options","tag-steam","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}