Due to Ongoing Market Conditions

The latest changes in Steam Deck prices has everyone feeling pretty apocalyptic about the future of consumer electronics. Even the yacht owners are feeling it! But we all like our toys, we all like our video games, and it's not all fully going away. But the shape of how they're delivered might be changing. Into what form? Well, we'll have to wait and see.

Maybe CD Projekt RED was really onto something when they decided to develop a new expansion for The Witcher 3, a game that's more than a decade old. It's a video game that can effectively run on any device someone might own in their house. (Shame about the combat...)

Embrace old games. Embrace old hardware. It is the new way?

Patrick: I joked last week about adding a new segment to the podcast called “due to ongoing market conditions.” I’m not sure it’s a joke anymore, now that Valve is raising the price of Steam Decks by hundreds of dollars. It’s perfectly in line with the increased prices for every other console, so on its face, there are no real surprises here. But what’s becoming clearer day by day is how much technology, especially new technology, is transforming into a luxury good. 

During peak COVID, I prided myself on looking ahead a little bit and buying accordingly. Trying to buy an outdoor pool for my kids and everyone else having the same idea at the same time, aka when it got hot, had me thinking that I should be buying things long before I needed them. It’s how we ended up with a chest freezer. The moment I read about worries related to meat shortages—which, thankfully, were ultimately not realized—I pulled the trigger on the freezer. 

There, uh, does not appear to be a way to short circuit the system right now. The best time to buy a Steam Deck at a reasonable price was six months ago. The next best time to buy a Steam Deck at a reasonable price is now, because the price is probably not coming back down.

Put aside what this means for the proposed Steam Machine or next-generation takes on PlayStation and Xbox, how is any company supposed to meaningfully plan and scope hardware for the future, and how are consumers supposed to plan and scope their own budgets for them?

I find myself, increasingly, acting impulsively with electronics purchases, and you know I am not that person. Oh, that doodad I’ve been thinking about getting? I should just get it, because there’s no guarantee it’ll even be available a month from now—or the price might just double.

I’ve been on the edge of a new TV purchase for ages. Will TVs remain immune from this? 

I’ve waited for a Steam Machine to have a compact PC under my TV. Should I bite the bullet and plop something that’d make my eyes explode on the card, because it’ll only get worse?

There’s no way to even make reasonable assumptions about a timeframe on how long you might, or could, wait for things to change. Months? Years? A decade? I might be fucking dead by then, dude! I’m not trying to be morbid insomuch as it’s nutty for the prices of adult toys to be causing so much anxiety, because you cannot wrap your head about how to be a rational actor.

Have you found the “due to ongoing market conditions” problem seeping into your life, too?

Rob: The last time we got our heating oil topped-up was just after the first attacks on Iran. Now our house is weird, as you know. Heating oil for the water and the radiant floor and baseboard heaters. Propane for the range, grill, and one of the fireplaces. Electric for the heat pumps. Energy prices suck in Massachusetts across the board, which is why even I find myself pretty cynical about electrification here, especially with Trump cancelling off-shore wind we were supposed to get. National Grid and Eversource are going to screw you relentlessly on electricity prices and deliver surcharges, so attempts at green policy here basically run through two of the most widely-loathed companies in the state.

Point is, this time of year, the heating oil is basically just used for hot water. So I find myself thinking, every time I linger for an extra moment under the stream, if I'm going to regret this little bit of comfort the next time the fuel truck pulls up.

On the other hand, the house has saved me from some of these anxieties while giving me others. From 2020 through 2024, we indulged ourselves with a lot of electronics and durable goods purchases. Our cost of living was low in that condo, and it's not like we knew we'd by buying this place, so made a lot of upgrades that felt ridiculously indulgent: OLED TV, PS5 Pro, new gaming PC, nice AV receiver, new (used) car, new couch, new dining room table.