Hardware Prices are INSANE

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Valve has raised Steam Deck prices in the US. $649 to $949.

[00:00:08]For $549 to $789.

[00:00:12]Obviously, this is crazy. Without a shadow of a doubt, this kind of price increase is is wild. Now, I do think it is worse than than it should be because Valve hadn't raised prices before, right? Like, this has been the same price since 2021? 2020? Right? And obviously, 2023, as we all know, had infamously low inflation. That was a joke. Actually, I don't know how bad it was in the in the US in 2023. In the EU, 2023 was the worst one in terms of inflation for everything. But, point is, like, the price increase, it seems worse than it probably would have been had they already raised raised prices before.

[00:00:51]But, don't get me wrong, $950 for a Steam Deck is crazy. Now, I did see I think it was also Wario that tweeted out the same thing. It sold out. Now, I don't know if it's if there was some kind of glitch where it appeared that it was restocked. And cuz like, this right here, right? Still out of stock. And then, apparently, there was a brief period of time where where it showed as in stock, and then now it's out of stock again. So, I don't know if that was some kind of glitch and it wasn't actually orderable or people actually bought it.

[00:01:24]Because if if people actually bought it at $950, I would like to be friends with these people.

[00:01:32]I would You if if you know any of these people, please point them to the YouTube channel Corrado's Mystery Shack. Uh we we are in desperate need of members, patrons, and everything else. So, I would very much appreciate these people.

[00:01:45]This is crazy, though. Now, in terms of what what the what the Steam Machine is going to cost, I mean, it's going to be like 1.5, 1.6, 1.7.

[00:01:59]I don't think it'd be too 2,000.

[00:02:02]1.2, 1.5, easily, I think. And then I think there might be like a slight deviation in terms of the Euro price.

[00:02:09]But I think it's going to be basically the same.

[00:02:12]Which is I mean, it's unfortunate.

[00:02:16]It's unfortunate. But I guess that's just that's just the world we live in, right? I know people will will immediately say like um Valve should subsidize it and all this. Uh it's not going to happen. Like this this is not a console. Even though it it's being positioned as like a console alternative, they cannot price it at a console price.

[00:02:34]So, that's game over. I think the Steam Frame, I saw I think it was Brad tweeting about this. The Steam Frame is the is the um well, obviously not the least, right? Cuz the the Steam Controller is the least impacted. Uh but the Steam Frame isn't as hard hard hit by the RAM prices. So, I think the Steam Frame is still going to be like I I think it's going to go up from what was originally planned, but I don't think it's going to be like in the stratosphere as the Steam Machine. But the Steam Machine Valve just can't catch a W. Every single time they release hardware, it's either a global pandemic or or like a uh like a complete economic shift in terms of where where hardware is going.

[00:03:12]You don't want to know how much I overpaid for my PS5. I mean, I overpaid for this PC, I think by like 1.5 times, maybe. Maybe two times, even.

[00:03:22]I basically play paid the price of a GPU for RAM alone. But it has been a goated PC. And uh I know I know um people are still hope baiting that hardware prices are going to go down.

[00:03:34]Uh it's not going to happen.

[00:03:36]>> [laughter] >> It's not going to happen for a long long long long long long time. I think the only way, and this is like that this is me being full of hopeium and copium, right? Even though I think it'd be pretty bad. I think the only way the prices can go down in the short term is if um if uh the the current cuz I saw there was there was news that even like the the Tesla like the GPU clusters they're sitting they're sitting unused, right?

[00:04:04]And it's because there there is an energy uh shortage. So, if there is like a a full-on full-on wall in terms of having energy to actually run all the GPUs, then the hardware prices might actually trickle down a little bit.

[00:04:19]Uh until then, I I keep seeing people make the make these posts about like the the AI bubble is bursting finally, and I'm like, "Bro, like it's I get that this gets views, but I I get I get that you this feeding people copium, but are we living in the same world?"

[00:04:36]It's crazy. It's actually crazy.

[00:04:39]The average person getting into PC gaming is in shambles. I mean, if I didn't buy to if I didn't need this PC for work, I said this before, not in a million years would I spend money on hardware right now. Not in a million years. I didn't buy anything during the insane um like the metaverse and crypto boom. I waited it out. And it kind of paid off. Now, granted, right after that that's when the AI stuff happened, but still, right? I would wait this out.

[00:05:09]Now, again, if you're waiting it out, you're going to be waiting for a long long long long time.

[00:05:15]So, realistically, like if your hardware is okay, I would genuinely just just say just chill. There there are plenty of games, and you probably don't really need the upgrade, you know?

[00:05:26]I don't plan on upgrading my GPU or anything for for a long time.

[00:05:31]The only thing I might buy is a second GPU to to do like a rendering machine.

[00:05:36]One more bubble video, and the bubble videos will collapse. I I think I think the AI bubble will will burst video video bubble needs to burst. Like I like 3 days ago I saw another one and it was like, "Bro, how are people still watching these and being like, 'Hell yeah, it's going to happen any day now.

[00:05:56]It's going to happen any day now.'"

[00:05:58]It's crazy. It's crazy. Uh I I saw these, right? So, this is from this is in the nature uh the nature thingy. This is like one of the most like you know you know you know about nature, right? I don't need to give you the lore recap on nature, right? But uh with stuff like this, spending is not going to go down. Uh I guarantee you. Like behind closed doors as soon as they start presenting this, the the TLDR for this is that this is a closed loop for drug development and it works. Like this is all like autonomously finding medicine that is then tested in a lab and it works. And there were two of these in the same week, right? I think this one was from Google. Uh this one was mostly DeepMind, I think. And this one was um I don't remember who this one was. But behind closed doors they're presenting this and this is like they're closing the loop on this whole thing is AI spending is not going down not anytime soon. And even if it is, most of the spenders is Meta and like Google, which are already like based on data centers.

[00:06:55]They need them anyway. They're just going to use them for something else.

[00:06:59]So, it is with great displeasure.

[00:07:03]This was very cool, by the way. I watched a video on this. This thing's very cool. Very very cool. This is the kind of stuff I live for. But yeah, buying a PC now not fun.

[00:07:15]Steam Machine is done for. They planned to release it early, but then GPU and memory prices skyrocketed, so they're in a lose-lose situation. If they do it now, the price would be insane, people would not buy it, and they can't make money off of it. If they wait, the hardware just gets old and the specs won't look good. I think people will still buy it. Like I think they'll sell a decent decent amount of these, but I think the price will be absurd, yeah. Uh it's very very unfortunate.

[00:07:35]Like I can't imagine it being like a like the Steam Deck initially. Whenever anybody wanted to even think about getting into like PC gaming and like playing with Steam, the the Steam Deck was like the easiest recommend of all time. It was such a good product, right?

[00:07:52]The Steam Machine is not going to be that. I think purely just based on the price. In terms of accessibility, sure it's still going to be very very good.

[00:08:00]In terms of price, it's never going to be like the thing of like you recommend casually.

[00:08:05]Cuz again, I don't know what kind of friends y'all have, but recommending like a 1.5 K purchase is not exactly something you're just like, "Oh yeah, get this." It's not exactly something that that I do often.

[00:08:16]Be very very unfortunate. Very very unfortunate.

[00:08:20]It is what it is. It is what it is. We love data centers.

[00:08:24]We love data centers. We love data centers. We love data centers. I don't know when when this is going to when this is going to change. I don't think it's going to change for a long time.

[00:08:32]Initially, I was thinking like like 2 3 years.

[00:08:36]But at this point, who knows?

[00:08:38]Cuz if if they can even get close to solving like the energy bottleneck, then I think this is just going to keep going up and up and up and up and up and up.

[00:08:45]I do love seeing science though. So whenever whenever I see these, cuz I I saw the two-minute papers, um he also had a video with a Demis, right?

[00:08:54]Uh I think Demis is like the most uh the most legit CEO of all this stuff, right?

[00:08:59]Demis is behind uh the Move 37 and and all this, right? Like it is DeepMind originally. Um this is a very good video uh with uh with Demis.

[00:09:09]It will be very interesting to see if Apple also budges on prices though, because Apple Apple is sitting on like a like a money pile, right? This gets into finance stuff, and I'm sure nobody cares and it's boring. But there's a lot of lore about Apple's financials and now they're investing into R&D, and they're they're basically incorporating AI from like other labs, right? And they're also working on their own thing, and they're working on the on like the Vision Pro stuff, and then they have like a whole BCI subsection. They're doing a bunch of stuff as well, but they have a huge money pile that they just don't spend on anything. So, it would be very interesting to see if they absorb this hit or if they if they also raise prices. We'll see.

[00:09:49]But yeah, what I was saying, whenever I see all the science stuff, right? Like I was looking at the the cool scientist thing it was working on like a very specific kind of leukemia, right? And they're they're basically like this works. We can start working on this. We see a solution in sight. I'm like, "Hell yeah, science.

[00:10:06]Let's keep on doing this." And then I'm just like, "Oh my god." But but at the same time, like I just think about all the all the pointless slop. And now we are entering like a scammer's paradise.

[00:10:16]Like you can just generate anything that looks real. And I'm just like, "This is going to be so bad." And then I'm like, "Oh no." And then I see another science thing and I'm like, "See yeah, science.

[00:10:27]Let's go." And and this is like the state I live in nowadays, where it's like the coolest bit of technology that has ever existed. And I'm just like, "Oh."

[00:10:36]Why does it have to be this way?

[00:10:39]The ultimate double-edged. So, it is, yeah. It is.

[00:10:42]Cuz I mean, when I think about stuff like and I think this is one of those things that like never really reaches the public, right? But like AlphaFold, the thing that folded all proteins, that came out of Google DeepMind. They gave it away for free practically. Right? And that is like genuinely one of the biggest advances that has ever existed in medicine at all. And it was just given away.

[00:11:02]And when you when you think about stuff like that, I'm just like, "This is ultimately where all this should be headed." And I think it is headed. But the road to getting there I don't think it's going to be good.

[00:11:13]I don't think it's going to be very exciting.