So, Valve's new Steam Deck is avai... ah why are we bothering, the Steam Deck sold out within about 30 seconds of pre-orders going live. As usual, pre-orders were a mad scramble, with websites imploding left, right, and center.
Valve's Steam Deck Sells Out in Seconds
As literally everyone expected, pre-orders for Valve's new Steam Deck performed well, with the handheld PC selling out practically as soon as it went live. You can confirm this yourself via the Steam Deck Pre-order page at SteamPowered.com.
The ordering system went live on Sunday, July 18th, following a tweet from Valve to inform everyone of such. Obviously this caused a massive scramble, which saw the console selling out until Q1, 2022 for the base model, and Q3, 2022 for the NVMe models.
In turn, this left many excited gamers with a disappointed look on their faces and hundreds of dollars still in the bank.Unfortunately, as with any tech nowadays, if you didn't bag a pre-order in the first round, then it is looking like you'll have to wait.
Valve has stated that it will send order invitations out by December 2021, so if you didn't get a pre-order, then you may still be in with a chance of getting one. Just don't hold your breath.
What Is the Valve Steam Deck?
Valve finally revealed the Steam Deck on July 15th, 2021. It is a handheld gaming PC, with plenty to shout about. On paper it looks absolutely fantastic and this writer for one is very jealous of anyone who secured the device at pre-order stage.
It comes in three models. The base model is $349, and comes with 64 GB eMMC storage. The mid-tier model is $529, and features a 256 GB NVMe SSD. The top tier model boasts a meaty 512 GB SSD.
It features a 7-inch touch-sensitive screen, joypad-style controls, and you can boost the storage with a micro-SD card.
In terms of internals we're looking at an AMD Zen 2 CPU, along with AMD's RDNA 2 GPU powering the graphics. You get 16 GB DDR5 RAM, so you're good to go as far as portable PC gaming goes.
The great thing about the device is you can also dock it and hook it up to a monitor for use as a gaming PC when you're at home. The official dock also comes with the benefits of an Ethernet port for hard-wired online play; a pleasant bonus when you want to play via a stable internet connection.
Did You Claim a Steam Deck Pre-Order?
If so, you're lucky to have secured one. As with the PS5 and Xbox Series X launches, buying or reserving anything now can be a genuine struggle, with lots of people missing out thanks to short order numbers.
Hopefully December will bring a few more lucky Steam Deck owners into the fold. Let's hope the console is as successful as the hype would have us believe.