Valve has confirmed that the ongoing Steam Deck OLED shortage is due to the worldwide RAM shortage caused by the rise of massive AI datacenters.

With AI companies buying up almost all of the world’s RAM before it’s even been manufactured, the price of hardware is skyrocketing. Valve’s Steam Deck is just one victim of many as the RAM shortage is predicted to last well into 2027.

In a short update on the Steam Deck’s store page, Valve announced that the item will be out of stock “intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages”. Right now, the handheld has only been out of stock for a few days, but Valve has not revealed how long the handheld will be unavailable.

Additionally, Valve recently delayed the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller. Originally planned to release in early 2026, the trio of hardware releases now has no release period with the company aiming to finalise plans “as soon as possible”.

The Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller were all announced without prices as Valve was still pinpointing the price for their new hardware line. However, this was before the worldwide RAM crisis which likely means that the Steam Machine will be considerably more expensive than many first assumed.

“We have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change,” Valve confirmed.

Thankfully, on the Steam Deck side, the pre-owned market appears to be largely unaffected by the shortage with Valve’s handheld still going fairly cheap if you’re okay with owning pre-used hardware. (Honestly, it’s the best way to go in times like this.)

While Valve has been largely affected by the ongoing memory crisis, we have yet to hear from other handheld manufactures including Lenovo, ASUS and others. As a worldwide issue, most hardware manufactures will be dealing with the very same issue, and that issue will likely result in price increases for consumers.