The ever growing popular Steam deck which saw massive pre-order rush back in July of this year and originally slated for initial release in December has just received (hopefully only) delay. Valve are now aiming at a February 2022 launch window for the portable handheld gaming the device.
In the statement added below, we get a clear sign that the global chip shortage is to blame for the delay – which was touted as an early factor of concern for the initial launch of the device, and still has a grip on the gaming market in both consoles and PC Gaming.
“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 said.
Official Valve statement
There is no word on how many actual pre-orders were made for the Steam deck and what sort of numbers Valve were planning on shipping in the first batch, but based on the entire ideology of the device – Valve aren’t looking to be the only contender in this market and are really pushing for game sales that this type of device can bring to the table. All initial devices will be sold to customer that pre-ordered months in advance with zero first look, so for Valve it’s more important to get as many devices out initially instead of dribs and drabs for months – which will still be a factor either way, but to a lesser degree if first batch is large enough.
More time to smooth out the software side of things is also a
