Up until now, buying a Steam Deck meant first purchasing a reservation, then waiting weeks or months until you came to the front of the queue before you could complete your purchase. No longer. Valve say that they've increased their manufacturing capacity such that you can now buy a Steam Deck without a reservation.
They've also made the Steam Deck's dock available to purchase. It costs $80/£80 and has the same 1-2 week delivery estimate as the Deck itself.
Valve explained all of the above and more in a new video:
"The team has worked hard over the past year to address shortages and solve logistics issues, and because of these efforts we're now manufacturing and shipping Steam Decks at our highest rate ever," says Valve in their announcement. "Despite the ever-increasing reservation rate, we've been able to beat our shipping estimates, and as of today, finally complete the queue."
Steam Deck production has been speeding up over time, causing Valve to repeatedly revise their projected delivery dates to bring them forward. By coincidence, I reserved a Steam Deck last week and was able to complete my order in less than seven days, but it's still nice that the queue is now gone completely.
The Steam Deck dock, meanwhile, lets you plug your Steam Deck into multiple devices while also displaying it upright. The dock was announced at the same time as the Deck, but is only available to purchase as of today. The dock includes a USB-C cable for plugging into the Steam Deck, as well as ports for power, Gigabit Ethernet, HMDI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4 and three USB 3.1 ports. It's probably better than the unofficial Steam Deck accessories James has been buying from Etsy.
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