The Steam Deck goes cheap: Steam Spring Sale includes "one-time deal" discounts on the handheld

Dodgy reseller listings aside, the Steam Deck has spent its entire life thus far without even a temporary price drop. That ends today, as the Steam Spring Sale has 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 the last time 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 the Deck’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.

All three Steam Deck versions are part of the sale, shedding exactly 10% apiece. The 64GB model is down from £349 / $399 to £314.10 / $359.10, the 256GB model drops from £459 / $529 to £413.10 / $476.10, and the top 512GB model falls from £569 / $649 to £512.10 / $584.10. Unlike the sad old days of 2022, there’s no lengthy waiting period once you put your order in, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes the full two weeks of Valve’s one-to-two week delivery estimate, what with the likely surge in demand.

Should you buy a Steam Deck at these discounted prices? Dunno, mate, it’s your money. Although, I will gladly repeat myself when I say that the Steam Deck was good when it launched and 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 nifty local 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 the best microSD cards for the Steam Deck, as well as our best Steam Deck games guide? 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 the Valve Index VR kit is permanently bundled with Half-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 the top 20 list we post on Twitter every month, for example), it may be tricky to find the right title to bundle."