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Steam Deck initial launch delayed to February 2022

Pre-order customers waiting on the initial shipment of Valve's upcoming portable PC platform will be waiting a couple more months.
TJ Denzer
TJ Denzer
12

It would appear that the initial shipments of Valve’s Steam Deck aren’t going to be arriving in December 2021 as intended. An email sent out to pre-order customers today has announced that the initial launch of the Steam Deck will be delayed back to February 2022.

This email was sent on November 10, 2021, informing those that pre-ordered the first batch of the Steam Deck that it would not be ready in time for the originally intended December 2021 launch. Valve posted further information on the delay in a blog post on Steam.

“The launch of Steam Deck will be delayed by two months,” the post reads. “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 has cited the global chip shortage and component supply constraints as one of the prime reasons for the Steam Deck's delay to February 2022.
Valve has cited the global chip shortage and component supply constraints as one of the prime reasons for the Steam Deck's delay to February 2022.

While this may be disappointing to many customers and players who were hoping to check out the Steam Deck this coming holiday, it could also be seen as somewhat inevitable. Many companies have cited issues with the global semiconductor famine, especially within the previous quarter of the year. In particular, Nintendo has curtailed its expectation on Switch production for its fiscal year, Tesla has mentioned chip shortage as a choke point on vehicle production, and Toshiba has warned that the shortage could last until 2023.

With all of this in mind, it seemed optimistic to believe that Valve wouldn’t also run into problems when launching its versatile new PC portable platform this coming December. Unfortunately, that also means that various customers that secured pre-orders after the initial scheduled shipment will likely be delayed further than Q2 2022.

The Steam Deck has, up to this point, looked quite promising. It’s disappointing to see it also fall victim to resource scarcity, but February 2022 also isn’t a horribly long time to wait. Here’s hoping we won’t see more delays at the new launch window next year. Stay tuned for further updates and details, here at Shacknews.

Senior News Editor
Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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