In November, Valve announced that the first shipment of Steam Decks had been delayed from December 2021 to February 2022. Shortly after, Valve said that it was confident there would be no further delays to the system’s production. Now, in the new year, Valve is saying once again that the first wave of Steam Decks are going out in February.
“We’re on track to ship Steam Deck on time,” Valve says. “Global pandemic, supply issues, and shipping issues notwithstanding, it looks like we’ll be able to start getting these out the door by the end of February.” The devs point pre-orders here, where you can check on the current availability window for your reservation. Of course, any new reservations are going to have a vague ‘after Q2 2022’ window.
In the remainder of the new January update, Valve says it’s ramping up work on the Steam Deck Verified effort, and you’ll start to see games on the Steam store rated for categories like input, seamlessness, display, and system support soon.
“Hundreds” of dev kits have been shipped this month to studios looking to improve their games for the Steam Deck, and there are more to come.
So yes, the Steam Deck release date is still on track – for those of you who got in early, at least. For some upcoming PC games to try on the device, you can follow that link.