Valve has discontinued production of its most affordable Steam Deck model, the 256GB Steam Deck LCD. Valve confirmed that the LCD model, which costs $399 in the U.S., will no longer be available once it sells out. The 512GB and 1TB storage versions of the Steam Deck OLED are the company’s only handheld devices officially on sale right now.
Steam Deck LCD discontinued
Valve confirmed the development on the official Steam Deck store page. The website lists all three Steam Deck models (256GB LCD, 512GB OLED, and 1TB OLED) with a note that says: “We are no longer producing the Steam Deck LCD 256GB model. Once sold out, it will no longer be available.” (via The Verge). Since Steam Deck is not officially sold in India, the store page only says “This item is not available in your region”.
According to The Verge, the Steam Deck LCD model is currently out of stock on the device’s US website, meaning Valve will no longer be restocking the handheld console.
Valve’s move to discontinue production of the LCD model marks the end of the road for the device to launch in 2022. The original Steam Deck featured an LCD screen and was available in 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage versions.
While Valve launched 512GB and 1TB versions of the Steam Deck OLED in 2023, the 64GB and 512GB models were discontinued. The 256GB Steam Deck LCD becomes the base model—the most affordable Steam Deck, priced at $399. The Steam Deck OLED 512GB and 1TB models are priced at $549 and $649 respectively.
Steam Deck store page
Photo Credit: Valve
Valve’s plans for Steam Deck 2
While Valve hasn’t revealed the reason for discontinuing the cheapest Steam Deck model, the decision may be motivated by the intention of launching a second-generation Steam Deck. Last month, the company announced Steam Machine, a new PC/console hybrid running SteamOS that will launch in early 2026 alongside the second-generation Steam controller and new Steam Frame VR headset.
While Valve didn’t reveal details about the next generation of Steam Deck at the time, the company said it had “a good idea” for what Steam Deck 2 would look like and hinted that a successor to Steam Deck might be in development.
Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told IGN after the release of Steam Machine: “Obviously, the Steam Deck is not our focus today, but as we have said in the past, we are very interested in looking at the next steps for the Steam Deck… What we want to make sure is that it is a worthy enough performance upgrade to be a standalone product.”
“We’re not interested in 20%, 30% or even 50% better performance at the same battery life. We want something more defined than that. So we’ve been working from the silicon advancement side and the architectural improvements side, and I think we have a pretty good idea of ​​what the next version of the Steam Deck is going to be, but there’s nothing in the space, the SoC space right now that we think is going to really be the next generation performance Steam Deck,” he added.
