WTF?! When one thing is experiencing brief provide and excessive demand, you possibly can virtually assure it’s going to seem on eBay at costs approach above the MSRP. So, it ought to come as little shock to study that the public sale website is awash with Steam Decks, the costliest of which reaches $3,000, or virtually 5 instances the traditional promoting worth.
The Steam Deck was at all times going to be a kind of gadgets on the mercy of scalpers. Its unique launch date for pre-orders was pushed again by two months to February, whereas those that weren’t as quick when securing a unit had been lately informed their ‘After Q2’ launch window would now be ‘After Q3.’
All of which provides as much as a tool that many need however few can pay money for—until you are keen to pay over the percentages on eBay. PCMag reviews that there are tons of Steam Decks on the location going for obscene quantities.
Checking the Steam Deck eBay listings, it seems that the costliest in-hand unit—as in, not nonetheless on pre-order—is up for $1,799 (+$70 transport) for a 256GB variant. That’s over 3 times its common $529 worth. There’s additionally a 64GB mannequin for $1,130. Its regular worth? $399.
Most eBay sellers do not even have their Steam Decks; they’re simply promoting the pre-order confirmations. The priciest of those, for a 512GB mannequin that ought to value $649, is a comical $3,000. For $100 much less, you may purchase a gaming PC from Newegg powered by a Ryzen 7 5800X and an RTX 3080.
The worst a part of the state of affairs is that individuals actually are paying these costs. A take a look at eBay’s Terapeak instrument reveals that 516 Steam Decks have been offered by way of 448 sellers on the location to date, with the typical promoting worth at $1,591—that determine was at its peak of $1,797 a few weeks in the past.
In July final yr, eBay began eradicating Steam Decks as they violated its “Presale Policy,” which states all pre-sales gadgets should ship inside 30 days, so a number of the present listings may very well be eliminated as they fall into the identical class.
