The Steam Deck Is Being Delayed By Two Months
Valve has confirmed that the highly-anticipated Steam Deck is being delayed by two months, so for those of you hoping to get your hands on it in December - you'll now have to wait until February 2022.
In an email, they stated that the issue is due to 'material shortages', but based on their 'build estimates', the handheld console should start shipping early next year.
They wrote: "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 February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue—you will keep your 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 you updated as we go."
The device is being marketed as a handheld console that will allow players to play traditionally PC-focused games on the go. Valve even made a point to say that it is "comparable to a gaming laptop with the ability to run the latest AAA games".
WHAT DOES THE STEAM DECK LOOK LIKE?
The Steam Deck has a 7" screen, two analogue sticks, two touchpads, ABXY face buttons, four rear buttons, analogue triggers, and gyro controls.
The placement of the analogue sticks has raised some eyebrows, as traditionally they appear closer to the bottom of handheld devices, but we're just going to have to wait and see how effective this placement is.
WHAT GAMES CAN YOU PLAY ON THE STEAM DECK?
Well, it looks like pretty much everything you can currently play on Steam. Which we would hope.
Speaking to IGN recently, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said: "We’ve been looking at various games the past few years in the back catalog, but the real test for us was games that were coming out last year. They just couldn’t really run very well on the previous types of prototypes and architectures we were testing."
He continued: "This is the first time we’ve achieved the level of performance that is required to really run the latest generation of games without problems. All the games we wanted to be playable is, really, the entire Steam library. We haven’t really found something we could throw at this device that it couldn’t handle."