Valve springs a Steam Deck savings surprise, with 10% off every model
Dodgy reseller listings aside, theSteam Deckhas spent its entire life thus far without even a temporary price drop. That ends today, as theSteam Spring Salehas launched with the first official Steam Deck savings - a 10% cut across the range - alongside the more expected dealsplosion of discounted games.
What’s more, this sale could also be thelasttime that the Steam Deck joins in a Steam sale, at least for a very long time. Lawrence Yang, a Valve designer who recently spoke to us about theDeck’s first year in the wild, has also told me that the company are “looking at this as a one-time deal in celebration of Steam Deck’s anniversary.” You’ll therefore have until March 23rd, when the Spring Sale ends, to seize a saving on the handheld PC before it returns to base pricing – maybe for good.
Shouldyou buy a Steam Deck at these discounted prices? Dunno, mate, it’s your money. Although, I will gladly repeat myself when I say that theSteam Deck was good when it launchedand has only improved since, benefitting from a series of software-based feature upgrades. Indeed, it was a matter of hours ago that Valve enabled a niftylocal game data sharing system, making for much faster installs when you already have the game on a different PC.
If you do take up Valve’s offer, may I also direct you to our roundup of thebest microSD cards for the Steam Deck, as well as ourbest Steam Deck gamesguide? The latter especially, as while this is a relatively noteworthy trio of hardware deals, one thing they don’t include is any bundled games. I asked Yang if Valve had considered trying this, similar to how theValve IndexVR kit is permanently bundled withHalf-Life Alyx.
“It’s been discussed”, he replied, “and as you mentioned we’ve done it in the past with other hardware. If there’s an opportunity to partner with a publisher to bundle a title that makes sense we’d definitely consider it.”
“That said, our userbase is so varied, and the types of titles people play on Deck is so diverse (see thetop 20 listwe post on Twitter every month, for example), it may be tricky to find the right title to bundle.”
