It's been a crazy ride for the Steam Deck. Since its debut in February 2022, Valve's Linux-based gaming console has consistently been among its best-selling products. Now, 83 weeks after its release, GamingOnLinux reports that the Steam Deck has finally left the global top 10 best sellers on Steam.
According to Valve's Weekly Top Sellers list for the Steam Deck, the console was among the top 10 from launch until October 3rd, 2023, when it finally fell behind to 11th place. Incidentally, Counter-Strike 2 launched right at the teetering-off point for the Steam Deck on September 27th and skyrocketed to the top of the charts, becoming Valve's best-selling product.
Undoubtedly, CS2's introduction helped kick the Steam Deck out of the top 10 early. Despite being a free-to-play game, Counter-Strike 2 is apparently making a ton of revenue for Valve due to player trading and microtransactions, similar to its predecessor.
Since the Steam Deck left the top 10, the console has bounced between 15th and 11th place, but it has not been back in the top 10 since it fell past it on October 3rd. Valve's Steam Deck has had an awe-inspiring run over the past 1.5 years.
If you don't remember, the Steam Deck had insane demand at the beginning of its launch in early 2022. Demand was so high that some of the first Steam Deck reservations were fulfilled several months later. In fairness, Valve was also battling component shortages around the Deck's release. However, it was still a significant revenue generator for Valve.
With more competition now in the handheld gaming market, it was only inevitable that the Steam Deck would start losing traction among handheld gamers. Now that the console is almost two years old, the Van Gough APU inside the Deck is becoming a little dated compared to the latest handheld gaming hardware in the latest handled consoles. Products like AMD's Z1 and Z1 Extreme offer CPU hardware two generations newer than the Steam Decks AMD APU and one generation newer graphics hardware (with more CUs in the case of the Z1 Extreme).
