Valve assures that the Steam Deck handheld PC gaming device is on schedule to be shipped by its planned February 2022 release date.
Earlier in November, the company announced that the highly anticipated portable gaming machine would be delayed by a couple of months from its initial December 2021 launch date.
Considering the challenges posed by the pandemic, chip shortages, and global shipping issues, gamers eagerly awaiting the Steam Deck will be relieved to hear that there will be no further delays.
In a January Update posted on the Steam Community website, the company stated, “First and foremost, we’re on track to ship Steam Deck on time. Global pandemic, supply issues, and shipping issues notwithstanding, it looks like we’ll be able to start getting these out the door by the end of February. You can view your estimated reservation availability window here, in case you’ve forgotten.”
In more positive news, the company mentioned that it has been sending out Dev units to hundreds of developers, allowing them to test their titles for seamless compatibility before the device reaches customers.
“It’s also important that we give developers the ability to test their games in order to get that nice green Verified check,” the company added, “so we’ve been sending developer kits out in quantity. We’ve been approving another wave of dev kits, and hundreds have been shipped out in the last month.”
The Steam Deck is set to revolutionize portable PC gaming, similar to what the Nintendo Switch has achieved in the console realm. It boasts superior performance to the Switch, featuring the AMD Zen 2 CPU and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 16GB of RAM. Additionally, it offers a 7-inch LCD touchscreen display with a 12800×800 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. The built-in storage capacity ranges from 64GB to 512GB and can be expanded via microSD cards.
While the starting price is £349 / $399 (64GB), the 512GB model is priced at £569 / $649. Users can access their games via the Steam Store, and any previously purchased games will be readily available.
