Valve “more than doubling” Steam Deck shipments after production boost
ValveSteam Deck shipments are “more than doubling” after a boost in production, Valve has announced. Q3 reservations of the console will also begin to ship on June 30th.
The Steam Deck has been a bit of a hot potato ever since it launched. The device has proven incredibly successful in bringing the PC gaming experience to a handheld form-factor. In tech, disruptive new products always tend to sell quite well, and the Steam Deck is no different. This popularity has caused Valve to not be able to keep up with the sheer number of Steam Decks that they will need to produce in order to keep up with demand.
This backlog has meant that reservations for the Steam Deck have tailed off until “After Q3”, meaning that some might not see their shipments until 2023. However, it’s not all bad news. In a Tweet from the official Steam Deck Twitter account, Valve had good news to share with its customers. The tweet states that Steam Deck shipments will be “more than doubling”.
Hello! Some great news on the production front. We just sent the last batch of Q2 emails, and we’ll start sending Q3 reservation emails on the 30th.
Production has picked up, and after today we’ll be shipping more than double the number of Steam Decks every week! pic.twitter.com/kAHE0zRrV7— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) June 27, 2022
Low volumes of Steam Deck shipments combined with its popularity has caused aftermarket prices for the console to skyrocket, with recent eBay listings selling for over $1,000 for some models of the console. Though, for those prices, it may be worth seeking out the Steam Deck’s well-stocked competitors such as the OneXPlayer or Ayaneo handheld PCs. However, the benefit of SteamOS is that you’re able to play games like Elden Ring or CS:GO with slightly smoother implementation, thanks to the maturity of the Proton compatibility layer.
Valve also announced that Q3 reservations for the Steam Deck will begin shipping from June 30th. They also state that if you’ve not had your Q2 reservation shipped out, to wait a little bit longer as they may still be processing it. Hopefully, this means that many who are awaiting their console that their Steam Deck shipment should turn up ahead of the all-important Christmas period.