No, Steam Deck was not just silently discontinued

For a brief period of time—and the earliest report of the incident I can find was 12 hours ago at time of writing, from some r/SteamDeck Redditors—the official Steam Deck store page redirected users to the Steam homepage, leading to speculation that the handheld may have been silently discontinued.

About four hours ago at time of writing, PCGuide covered the incident and claimed that the Wayback Machine hadn't shown a live version of the page since October 30th.

Besides the fact I couldn't find any corresponding reports on that date, I can also confirm that Halloween shows the only visible gap in the Internet Archive's coverage, with live versions of the page available from November 1st through to today, the 3rd.

As for why that inconsistency exists between PCGuide's writeup and the Wayback Machine, I'm not certain, but I do want to note that breaking news stories often don't have the benefit of hindsight.

At time of writing, the Steam Deck Store Page has returned in proper form, currently reflecting both 512GB and 1TB OLED model availability, at least in the United States. Other r/SteamDeck Redditors began reporting the return of the store page about seven hours ago, as well.

What remains unclear is why or how this issue even happened. Valve has made no official comment on the matter, and most estimate a proper Steam Deck 2 as being a year or more away. There's a non-zero chance that this was a simple technical glitch that has since been resolved, but the more excitable among you may also view it as a hint at an upcoming reveal.

If Steam Deck 2 really is a year away, this timing for a tease may actually be ideal—but other concerns, like the ongoing RAM crisis, may impact those plans.