All Steam Deck Customers Will Receive Their Devices by Year's End

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Full steam ahead, as Valve beings to resolve supply chain issues plaguing the Deck

Steam Deck
(Image credit: Valve)

Valve just tweeted out some great news for future Steam Deck owners; anyone who already has a Steam Deck reservation will get one by the end of the year. The surprise is a result of Valve clearing up supply chain issues plaguing Steam Deck production, with many customer reservations being moved ahead of schedule by an entire quarter.

To be more specific, Valve says that as of today, anyone who's currently in the reservation queue will get their Steam Deck email this year. But this doesn't mean everyone will get their Deck at once; many of the reservations in the quarter four or later branch window are now in the quarter three branch, which starts in July. Everyone else is now "solidly" in the quarter four window, which begins in October.

Thankfully, there's still time to get your order in for 2022. Valve says any new reservations at this moment will be in the Q4 bracket. So once queues fill up for Q4, they will flip into Q1 of 2023. But if recent Steam Deck production numbers are anything to go by, demand for the new console is still very high. So, ensure you get your order in as soon as possible in time for Christmas or the New Year.

The bad news is that December is still five months away for the unlucky reservations which have stayed in Q4. Valve says supply chain shortfalls are easing, but it is a gradual process that will take time to accomplish.

Valve's Steam Deck continues to be the best-selling product in Valve's entire library, and that list also includes video games. Hopefully, Valve clears up these supply chain issues fast - by 2023 at the very least, or these long wait times will continue to plague the new console's availability. However, at least current reservations have moved ahead of schedule by a large margin, which is a sign of better availability.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Peter_Bollwerk
    I think you meant "begins", not "beings" =)
    Reply
  • abufrejoval
    I sure hope they aren't producing for all reservations!

    I was interested in the deck when I ordered start of February, mostly for the novelty.

    At that point I was pretty sure I'd be able to sell it onward, in case it was going to be a disappointment.

    Half a year later I'm not even curious any more and certainly no longer interested at €619 for hardware that's two years behind. They sell fully loaded 14" 3k OLED notebooks at that price with a Zen3. And those are delivered within a week.

    And by the end of the year that won't improve.

    Nor will there be anyone else interested left over, so if it disappoints, it will just be e-trash.

    Valve, what were you thinking?
    Reply
  • leadpoop
    abufrejoval said:
    I sure hope they aren't producing for all reservations!

    I was interested in the deck when I ordered start of February, mostly for the novelty.

    At that point I was pretty sure I'd be able to sell it onward, in case it was going to be a disappointment.

    Half a year later I'm not even curious any more and certainly no longer interested at €619 for hardware that's two years behind. They sell fully loaded 14" 3k OLED notebooks at that price with a Zen3. And those are delivered within a week.

    And by the end of the year that won't improve.

    Nor will there be anyone else interested left over, so if it disappoints, it will just be e-trash.

    Valve, what were you thinking?
    I just received mine two weeks ago and I can tell you I have played more PC games in the past two weeks than I have the past year or two. Is it expensive? Yes. Does it perform well? Yes. Is it for everyone? No. Would I buy a gaming laptop? No. Am I happy with it? Heck yeah!

    The Steam Deck allows me to sit on the couch and just game, casually. I don't have to sit at my desk booting up a large desktop and hope all my games are updated. Heck. I can't even recall the last time I even gamed on my desktop because it's just too much work. I personally find it an awesome device.

    On demanding games, the battery will last about 2 hours, which is more than enough for me. Simple games last far longer than I'm willing to sit and game. Entering standby and resuming a game is as simple as pressing a button that feels near instantaneous. The controls are intuitive, and overall, the device is comfortable. It just works, It works so well, I reserved another in case my son wants one. If not I can just cancel it.

    With that said, I fully understand what it is and what it isn't. It is not a super powerful gaming device, and that's okay. For us who bought the Deck, we know what it is. What was Valve thinking? I'm not sure, but they definitely have something here from my experience.

    Cheers.
    Reply
  • abufrejoval
    I don't actually have a lot of time to spend gaming, but I do want to stay up-to-date on gaming as a "technologist". So I do have pretty powerful machine learning kit that also happens to work well for gaming, including some VR headsets. And of course my kids don't mind if I push the last generation kit to them, once I get the newest machine learning hardware tax reduced for my business use.

    The potentially rather novel use case for the Steam deck would be to use it not sitting down on a couch, but to take advantage of its motion sensors, gyros etc. to move the console within the came, almost as if it was a VR headset. So instead of pointing to the monster via the joystick, you'd point the console at the monster's head and then push the kill button and use the joystick only to swivel your head.

    At that point the Steam deck would have had a real USP.

    But from what I've gathered in the mean-time it's really just a PC tech based console with a terribly small screen when I'm used to either a big 4k screen or a high-res VR headset once I do find some time to play.

    And the secondary use case as a Linux or Windows workstation once hooked up to an external monitor, doesn't seem to receive much love (docking station fate up in the air) nor make too much sense when equivalent or more powerful ultrabooks are becoming available for the same price.

    I'm glad it's working for you, but not convinced even my kids would give it serious usage once I'm bored with it. And when it should finally come, I'm sure its resale value will be too low for me to stay waiting.

    And without a successor already announced, I just see too much of a risk that Valve will abandon the platform, much like all their other hardware projects (Steam Controller, Steam Box, Steam Link, Steam VR).
    Reply