Nothing can escape the gravitational pull of February 2022. Not even Valve and its upcoming handheld Steam Deck. The company has announced the initial wave of devices that were supposed to ship out in December will now have a targeted February ship date.
The delay is due to the global supply chain issues plaguing many businesses heading into the holiday season. Here’s Valve’s announcement of the shifted timeline and its reasoning why in full:
The launch of Steam Deck will be delayed by two months. We’re sorry about this—we did our best to work around the global supply chain issues, but due to material shortages, components aren’t reaching our manufacturing facilities in time for us to meet our initial launch dates.
Based on our updated build estimates, Steam Deck will start shipping to customers February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue—all reservation holders keep their place in line but dates will shift back accordingly. Reservation date estimates will be updated shortly after this announcement.
It looks like Steam Deck reservations that were due later will also be affected. Keep an eye on your Steam account if you’ve pre-ordered one already.
While it’s disappointing to have to wait the extra couple of months, two months isn’t a lot longer to wait. Hopefully, this will give Valve the time needed to gather the proper components and ship these bad boys out to the gaming public.
The Steam Deck was announced in July promising a device capable of bringing your entire Steam library on the go in a compact Switch-like form factor. You can read about the device from our story on the announcement, and you can check out our suggestions on the best games to play on Steam Deck here.
