Valve Steam Deck Remains 'On Track' For February 2022 Release

The Valve Steam Deck is on schedule to release in February 2022, barring any further delays.

PCGamer reports that Valve is quite confident that their new handheld console (or mini PC, rather) will ship just in time next year. This is according to Deck designer Greg Coomer, who also remarked that they "feel bummed" that they had to move the initial launch date from the end of this year to next year.

For those who have been closely following the news, the Steam Deck was originally slated to start shipping this month. This followed the first pre-orders which began on July 16 (as per GameSpot).

Component shortages were pinpointed as the main reason for the 2-month delay, according to MakeUseOf. That was quite understandable, considering that the global silicon shortage is still in effect. The Steam Deck was no exception to the supply chain issues.

The manufacturing of the Decks themselves isn't Valve's main problem at all, but the parts-specifically 50 components which the company considered at high risk of being in short supply.

As a result, the launch of the Deck will be a bit different compared to other products of the same type.

According to Valve, their handheld will ship only through their own storefront for now. This is a markedly different situation from something like, say, the Switch, which Nintendo had to send stocks off to partner retail stores.

Coomer also reiterates that the company's initial plan is to target a specific number of users on day one, then build on the numbers over time instead of making a one-time, big-time shipment on the first day and having supply lines strained for the foreseeable future.

The upcoming handheld gaming device is one of the most anticipated of the current generation. Preorder slots ran out almost immediately back in July, and there were reports of early Steam Deck scalping that saw asking prices skyrocket to as much as $5,000 for the top-end unit.

Read also: Valve's Steam Deck Won't Be Compatible With NVIDIA DLSS

What's So Hot About The Valve Steam Deck?

Quite simply, early reviews of the handheld sound promising-especially after Valve themselves made bold claims about the performance of the device.

During the early days of the Deck's reveal, it was claimed that it would have enough power to run every game on the Steam library. This is a tall order, considering that Steam houses several of the current gaming generation's most hardware-demanding titles.

However, early hands-on impressions did live up to the promise a bit. A reviewer from The Verge tried firing up "Control" and "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" on the Deck, which are two very demanding games. Needless to say, both games ran very well on the platform.

And it was doing so at a competitive MSRP: you can have the Deck for as low as $399 for the 64GB model, if you don't mind the tiny storage capacity.

There is a lot of hype surrounding the Valve Steam Deck-a new entrant in the handheld gaming space. But will it live up to the expectations? All will be revealed next year.

Related: Valve's 'Deck Verified' Tells Which Games are Compatible with Steam Deck-All VR Games Unsupported?

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by RJ Pierce