Valve already warns that the memory shortage will affect the availability of the Steam Deck

Valve has begun to warn that the memory shortage may affect the availability of its Steam Deck portable game console, which may be out of stock in some regions.

The high demand for memory (RAM and storage) by artificial intelligence is leading consumer product manufacturers to face the shortage of these components, with the warning that prices will rise and the features they offer may drop in level.

In this context, Valve shared in early February that it had to review the release date and price of the Steam Machine game console and the Steam Frame virtual reality headset, which it still hopes to launch on the market in the first half of the year.

However, this situation also affects the consoles that are already on sale. According to a notice posted on its official store, “Steam Deck OLED may be temporarily out of stock in some regions due to memory and storage shortages. The 256GB model of Steam Deck LCD is no longer in production and will no longer be available when stock runs out.”

The store in Spain already shows the 512GB Steam Deck LCD and Steam Deck OLED models as sold out, and allows you to purchase the 1TB OLED model, although with delays in delivery.

Valve is not the only technology firm that has had to make changes to its roadmap. Sony would be considering delaying the arrival of the next generation of PlayStation consoles until at least 2028 or 2029, while Nintendo is considering raising the price of Switch 2.

In December, memory maker Micron Technology announced its intention to dedicate its resources to manufacturing memory for data centers. This turn marked the end of the Crucial consumer brand of computer memories.

As he later explained, the problem in the industry was due to the fact that “The general market requires more bits than before. And the entire industry has a shortage of these”, something that could not be solved simply with new memory factories because the problem was in the variety of densities of these modules.