Valve has confirmed that the launch of its Steam Deck handheld PC gaming console has been delayed until February 2022, about two months later than the original December 2021 release.
The company, which operates the Steam Store, cites supply chain issues as the reason for the delay, a common challenge faced by many tech companies striving to bring their products to market.
Valve has apologized for the delay and has promised to provide updates on reservation date estimates in the near future. Currently, users can only make reservations for the device and join the queue, but cannot place orders.
In a post on the Steam Store, Valve explained, “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 in February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue—all reservation holders will keep their place in line, but dates will shift back accordingly. Reservation date estimates will be updated shortly after this announcement.”
This delay will surely disappoint gamers who were anticipating the console’s arrival before Christmas. The Steam Deck, which aims to revolutionize portable PC gaming much like the Nintendo Switch did for the console realm, boasts powerful features, including the AMD Zen 2 CPU and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 16GB of RAM. It offers a 7-inch LCD touchscreen display with a 1280×800 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate, along with ample storage of up to 512GB, expandable via microSD.
The starting price for the 64GB model is £349 / $399, and the 512GB model is available for £569 / $649. Games will be accessible through the Steam Store.
