Valve Confirms Steam Deck OLED Is The Latest Memory Supply Crunch Victim
Try getting your hands on a Steam Deck these days and you're likely to be frustrated by the lack of inventory. That's understandable for the original LCD version of the Steam Deck, which also happens to be the most affordable variant, as Valve confirmed in December that it had discontinued that model. But even the Steam Deck OLED models are currently out of stock and Valve says "memory and storage shortages" are to blame.
On the Steam Deck website, all three handhelds listed are sold out, including the 256GB Steam Deck LCD ($399), 512GB Steam Deck OLED ($549), and 1TB Steam Deck OLED ($649). In a note underneath the listings, Valve reiterates the discontinuation of the LCD model, and explains that the OLED models will be" out of stock intermittently" going forward.
"Note: Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages. Steam Deck LCD 256GB is no longer in production, and once sold out will no longer be available," Valve states.
It's curious that the Steam Deck LCD is even still listed on the product page underneath the heading "Choose your Steam Deck," albeit it no longer carries a pricing designation. Still, Valve might as well remove it altogether since it's now sold out and no longer in production.
Meanwhile, the Steam Deck OLED configs are both currently showing as out of stock as well. Production remains on the popular handhelds, but like so many consumer electronics, especially in the realm of PCs and gaming, the Steam Deck OLED is affected by the AI-driven memory supply crunch that is expected to last for years.
It's hardly the only product to feel the fallout from a shortage of memory chips in the consumer space. Same goes for storage. In fact, Western Digital is already sold out of hard drives for all of 2026, and rumor has it Sony may delay the launch of its PlayStation 6 console, to give just two examples.
The supply crunch has also led to numerous price hikes. Raspberry Pi Foundation recently announced price increases of between $10 to $60 for its single board computer (SBC) models, and Framework has been forced to adjust pricing on multiple occasions in recent weeks.
As consumers, this is the new reality we face for the foreseeable future. Today it's the Steam Deck OLED that is the next domino to fall. Now we wait and see how current and ongoing market conditions will affect Valve's Steam Machine launch plans.
