The cost of making the Steam Deck has gone up. Valve can't sell them at a massive loss or they'll go out of business. That's not Valve jacking up the price, like I already pointed out:

Go re-read my post, because you clearly missed an important part

the only reason their hardware is expensive now is because part manufacturers are mostly price gouging (lying about AI being the cause of ALL the increased costs, which isn't true, just like it wasn't entirely true with the bitcoin mining craze).

Building a PC has skyrocketed in price too, blaming Valve is just ridiculous.