The golden age of handheld gaming is already over

For a few glorious years, a $399 portable gadget could run almost anything you’d want to play. In 2022, the Steam Deck finally made PC gaming portable and affordable. I played through the vast majority of Elden Ring on a Steam Deck, agape that such a rich world could comfortably fit between my two hands. Today, that Steam Deck experience starts at $789 — nearly double the price. Similarly, a Nintendo Switch cost $299 at launch — but after Nintendo’s Switch 2 upgrades and “changes in market conditions,” the starting price of today’s Nintendo handheld gaming experience will soon be $499 , more than a disc-less PS5 cost at launch. You might say so what: doesn’t everything cost more right now? Welcome to RAMageddon , tariffs, and rising oil prices due to Trump’s war on Iran. And I can’t fully blame Nintendo or Valve. Heck, I credit them for being among the last to raise prices. “Console gaming is continuing its slow and steady march towards becoming a niche, luxury good,” my colleague Andrew Webster wrote earlier this month , pointing out how both Sony and Microsoft have hiked prices multiple times and that Nintendo was one of the last holdouts. …