Initially set for a December release, Valve’s Steam Deck will now begin shipping to folks in February 2022. Why the delay? Valve cites ongoing global supply chain issues that have been a headache for months across many industries.
From Valve’s statement:
“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.”
Valve stressed everyone who already reserved one will “keep their place in line but dates will shift back accordingly.” Reservation date estimates should already be updated or will be shortly.
First revealed in July, the Steam Deck gives you the ability to play a good chunk of the Steam catalog. Exactly how many games, and how well they’ll run, is still an open question. But Valve did recently announce a Steam Deck compatibility program called Deck Verified.
It will be split into four categories:
Verified – The game works great on Steam Deck, right out of the box.
Playable – The game may require some manual tweaking by the user to play (Valve gives the example of having to manually select a community controller config, or needing to use the touchscreen to navigate a launcher).
Unsupported – The game is currently not functional on Steam Deck. (Half-Life: Alyx is one example)
Unknown – We haven’t checked this game for compatibility yet.
Valve is just the latest to fall victim to the current supply shortages happening damn near everywhere these days. Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switches all require a quick ordering trigger finger to get one. And I don’t know how the hell folks are getting Nvidia’s 3000 series GPUs at retail. I’ve been trying to get my hands on one for 6+ months now.