I think you misunderstand the logistics of having multiple products on a line using the same hardware but different price points. First of all, Valve isn't Nintendo. Despite them being very profitable and making a lot of money, they don't have the power like Nintendo does to mass order special parts for their devices.

With the AI hardware apocalypse, the cost of everything surged, even for OEMs. So with that in mind, if you had an offering of multiple devices that use the same components but one is cheaper and may potentially lose you money, do you keep that, or just consolidate everything into a single product line? Valve didn't remove the LCD because they didn't want to sell a cheap product, hell they put the device on some amazing sales while it existed. They removed it because selling a $300 device while the cost to build that is almost the same price is pointless, and at the end of the day, the purpose of Valve is to make money.

The new price of deck OLEDs reflect the reality that even a billion dollar company can't procure hardware contracts at a reasonable price. Even Nintendo is going to be raising switch 2 price and who knows if another hike to that will come later.

I assume that after this deck price hike, the steam machine is basically dead. If Valve does go through with the release, the cost will just be too high for what it is, and people would rather just buy a console at that price point.

The AI bubble is truly ruining the hardware industry, and I know it feels like an excuse right now, but Valve has no reason to be greedy. They already make enough money from the store, and the hardware that sold has always been fairly priced. Things are just truly fucked right now.

The funny thing is that the LCD is still listed on the site, even after they've made all these changes. And the "won't be restocked" verbiage is gone. So I'm wondering if they're going to restock those as well.