Valve delays Steam Deck launch by two months

Valve’s Steam Deck, its upcoming portable PC gaming device, has been pushed back by two months, according to emails the company sent out Wednesday to those who preordered the console. The company also updated its FAQ page about the Nintendo Switch-like device, confirming it will not ship until later in February 2022. 

The Steam Deck made its debut back in July with initial plans to ship starting in December. Valve had an unconventional preorder process. The company allowed everyone who wanted a Steam Deck to preorder, but when your preorder would ship was determined by the order it was received. This meant a few people would receive their Steam Deck in December, while most would have to wait until 2022. 

“The launch of Steam Deck will be delayed by two months,” Valve said in an email sent to customers who preordered. “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’s Steam Deck functions like a handheld gaming PC with its own custom AMD chip with a Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 graphics, along with 16GB of RAM. It comes in three different models starting at $400 for a unit that comes with 64GB of storage. The 256GB sells for is $529 and the 512GB is $649. All Steam Decks also come with a  microSD card slot to expand storage and play on a  7-inch, 1,280×800-pixel LCD screen. It can also plug into a dock to play on a TV.