Valve Details Steam Deck Rollout Plans
It seems like Steam Deck customers might not have to suffer through additional delays. Valve says that everyone in the Q1 reservation window should receive order emails by the end of March, like they hoped, and that it will start to send order emails to other buyers in April.
A quick refresher: Valve didn't offer traditional pre-orders for the Steam Deck. People were instead asked to spend $5 to reserve a unit during a specific release window. Now those reservation holders can decide if they want to place their orders or cancel them.
The company says that its first batch of Steam Deck order emails was sent on the morning of Feb. 25. "The next batch of emails will go out on Monday, March 7th," Valve says, because "it turns out the logistics work out better if we don’t try to ship over a weekend." (Who knew?)
Valve will then send additional order emails on March 14, 21, and 28 so it can offer the Steam Deck to everyone who reserved a unit for the first quarter shipping window. The company says that it will "start going through the Q2 queue in a similar fashion" in the beginning of April.
This should be welcome news for wannabe Steam Deck buyers. Valve originally expected to release the device in December 2021, but component shortages forced it to delay the launch by two months, and the reservation window had already slipped into the second quarter of 2022.
Reservations have since been put into a non-specific "After Q2 2022" window, and unfortunately Valve didn't offer any guidance about when those orders might be ready. "We’re working through our production schedules," it says, "and will have news soon for folks in the After-Q2 bucket."
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