Valve Confirms that the Steam Deck has Been Delayed by 2 Months!

Following the formal unveiling of the Steam Deck earlier this year, it has undoubtedly represented one of the most semi-surprising tech launches of the year. And in terms of consumer demand, well, with the number of pre-orders already placed for the handheld system, it has likely far exceeded even Valve’s own initial expectations. – Given the overall issues presented over the last 12-months with both shipping and chipsets, however, the chance of the Steam Deck actually managing to meet its initial December 2021 shipping date did always seem moderately unlikely. Or, at the very least, somewhat optimistic.

Well, following an official update, if you were one of the early-doors orderers, then the news isn’t good as Valve has just confirmed that they have had to push back the initial shipping date by two months! In other words, the first Steam Deck systems will not begin shipping until February 2022!

Steam Deck Shipping Delayed!

As noted above, the delay isn’t honestly overly surprising. And you can’t necessarily blame Valve much either as when the Steam Deck was launched, there were plenty of indications to suggest that the global chipset shortage was going to improve. With that clearly not coming to fruition, however, Valve has issued the following statement:

“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 February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue—all reservation holders keep their place in line but dates will shift back accordingly. Reservation date estimates will be updated shortly after this announcement.

Again, we’re sorry we won’t be able to make our original ship date. We’ll continue working to improve reservation dates based on the new timeline, and will keep folks updated as we go.”

Where Can I Learn More?

This is clearly a decision that has not been made lightly. It seems abundantly clear though that despite their best efforts to garner components, Valve simply couldn’t get enough Steam Deck’s ready to go before Christmas. As such, rather than drip-feeding them, which would undoubtedly raise a lot of frustration among those who have pre-orders in place, they have instead decided to make the better decision to simply push the shipping back until February.

For the latest news regarding the status of the Steam Deck, you can check out its official website via the link here!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!