Gabe Newell has discussed the pricing of the Steam Deck, calling it "painful" but "critical".
In an interview with IGN, Gabe discussed the £349 price point of the handheld PC, saying that Valve needed to be "aggressive" with how they priced the system.
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Gabe said, "I want to pick this up and say, oh, it all works. It's all fast. It's all… and then a price point was secondary and painful. But that was pretty clearly a critical aspect to it. But the first thing was the performance and the experience, that was the biggest and most fundamental constraint that was driving this".
Although the Steam Deck is as powerful as a gaming laptop, the price point has been the source of some ire from gamers, especially when factoring in some of the more expensive versions. The Steam Deck starts at £349 for the basic release but also has a £459 version and a final £549 iteration that each upgrade the SSD and come with different perks. Although the starter version of the console is only £50 more than the Nintendo Switch OLED model, it's these upgraded models that have
Gabe's comments on the pricing being "painful" and "aggressive" make it clear that Valve knew there would be some backlash towards the high price point of the Steam Deck. However, considering how much more powerful the Steam Deck is in comparison to other handhelds on the market, the price seems pretty reasonable overall.
In a separate interview Valve hardware director Shreya Liu said that the Steam Deck was "designed with that price in mind, and we worked very, very hard to achieve the price point that we're at", again making it clear that Valve has been planning this price point for a while.
Elsewhere in the article, designer John Ikeda said that the Steam Deck had to be "premium in feel, premium in look". Ikeda also said, "We weren't going to sacrifice those, so balancing that in this atmosphere of supply chain and manufacturing toughness, was something that we knew from the very beginning that we weren't going to sacrifice, so we needed to find a way," Ikeda said.
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