So the prices never go back down.

So, the bottleneck here is really the memory prices, and while Steam Deck sales do affect memory prices — as with anyone buying anything with memory — my guess is that it’s a pretty small factor relative to other devices using memory.

According to WP, the Steam Deck has 16GB and sold uh, 4 million units over its entire lifetime as of February this year. It’s been out for four years. So figure ~64 petabytes of DRAM over its lifetime, or ~16 petabytes of DRAM per year.

For comparison, in a single year, looking at smartphones:

wifihifi.com/1-25b-smartphone-units-produced-in-2…

1.25B Smartphone Units Produced in 2025, Apple & Samsung Tied for Tops

counterpointresearch.com/…/Global-Smartphone-Aver…

Global Smartphone Average DRAM Hits Record 8.4GB in 2025

8.4 GB is the per-phone average, including older phones, so this is probably a conservative estimate, but assume for 2025, that meant that phone manufacture consumed ~10,500 petabytes of DRAM in a single year.