Valve Has Given Fans Excellent News About The New Steam Deck
Fans have been waiting for word about the upcoming Steam Deck for too long, but Valve finally has some good news.
Valve’s upcoming challenger to Nintendo Switch’s throne has been in high demand ever since reservations went live last year, and people are restlessly checking their phones and mail for order emails to come through. After months of delays caused by supply chain shortfall, Valve finally shared some good news with the fans: those who have ordered their upcoming Steam Deck are likely to get the handheld by the end of the year.
According to Destructoid, Valve announced that it’s fulfilling demand sooner than estimated, and it’s bumping up reservation sports for those patiently waiting for their Steam Deck. This is fantastic news for the fans, considering that the supply shortages severely affected the production of Steam Deck since the handheld was announced. Luckily, Valve managed to clear any supply shortfalls, and the company is continuing to ramp up its output, delivering the new handhelds to their owners ahead of the designated delivery time.
Everyone who is currently in Valve’s reservation queue is likely to receive their Steam Deck by the year’s end. All the customers that were previously in the Q4 delivery window or later have been moved up to Q3, meaning they can expect their Deck to arrive anytime between July and the end of September. All new reservations will go into the now-vacant Q4 delivery queue, ranging from October to the end of December until the queue for 2022 fills up, and all reservations made afterward will continue to spill over to Q1 2023 and subsequent quarters.
Admittedly, despite the initial hardships in their supply chains, Valve has continually increased its shipments since the handheld’s launch. The company initially started sending reservation emails twice a week in April, followed by a statement in June in which the company said it would be doubling the number of handheld PC shipped per week. And with more Steam Decks rolling off the production line, it would seem that the company’s efforts bore fruit.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the Steam Deck docking station since its official hardware was indefinitely delayed a few months back, without any word on when it might become available. Luckily, there are fully compatible third-party docking stations for Steam Deck available to the public, and considering how well designed some of these models are, Valve would’ve had more success with the docking station if it had partnered up with some of those third-party manufacturers.
The Steam Deck was also a bit rough around the edges when the handheld launched in February, but Valve followed up with massive updates that fixed all the various issues with Steam Deck. The portable PC now feels more “fully baked” compared to the initial release version, the controls offer a fantastic degree of customization, and the new software update successfully decreased the handheld’s fan noise.
Fan noise was a common issue with the handheld, but fan replacements are easily done by anyone with basic knowledge of holding a Philips screwdriver. Additionally, Valve partnered up with iFixit, the popular repair website/company that openly supports the Right to Repair movement, to make their handheld more easily repairable by the general public. Other than that, we want to congratulate all Deck fans for receiving their handhelds sooner than expected — live long, and game on.
