Valve announced Wednesday that the release of the Steam Deck, their upcoming handheld gaming system, has been delayed to February 2022, two months later than originally anticipated. The company blames the delay on “material shortages” caused by the global supply chain issues that are affecting nearly every industry worldwide.
The statement assures customers who have already reserved Steam Decks that their place in line has been saved.
The Steam Deck was originally announced in July, and was targeting a December 2021 release date. The system resembles a Nintendo Switch, but is thicker and boasts two trackpads, one under each analog stick. While games are naturally purchased from the Steam store, the Steam Deck runs a modified version of Linux dubbed SteamOS, not Windows. However, SteamOS includes a compatibility layer named Proton that Valve says will allow games developed for Windows to run on the platform with no additional development work.
You can pre-order a Steam Deck now, though Valve says machines ordered now won’t ship until Q2 of 2022.
Read Valve’s full statement below:
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.
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