Valve's price hike just murdered the Steam Deck's momentum on the charts. The handheld that used to camp in the top 5 of Steam's best-sellers has plunged to 14th after May's big jump to $789 for the 512GB OLED and $949 for the 1TB model, with analysts at Boiling Steam estimating an 82% drop in weekly unit sales from 11k-18k down to just 1.4k-3k.

Steam's revenue-weighted rankings don't lie here — the $100-plus bump on top of memory cost excuses killed the value play that made the Deck a steady seller through 2025. Initial restock hype faded fast once buyers saw the new tags, and now it's sliding while competitors and games dominate the list.

This isn't just one bad week; it's the end of the affordable handheld era Valve helped kick off. Players are already calling it out on X and Reddit as the AI-driven component crunch finally catching up to the consumer side. Valve can blame supply chains all they want, but the charts show the damage is done.