Valve has announced today that their hotly anticipated handheld, the Steam Deck, has been delayed until 2022.
Sadly, every company making computing hardware has been facing component shortages and various shipping delays and it seems that Valve has been unable to get around it. They said "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.".
So now, instead of December 2021 the first set of order invitations will go out to customers in February 2022. That is the new starting point, with everyone being shifted (ours is now saying Q2 2022).
Valve apologised and mentioned they will "continue working to improve reservation dates based on the new timeline, and will keep folks updated as we go".
While it's a huge shame, there is a positive side to this. A delay gives Valve plenty more time to get Steam Play Proton into a state where it can run even more games, and run them with good performance too. It's been a struggle for some multiplayer games with the various anti-cheat systems, even with the recent announcements for Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye, not many developers are willing to confirm their support for it just yet.
As before you can visit the Steam Deck page to see when yours will hopefully be available.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Valve Time^tm
Arehandoro Nov 10, 2021
Last edited by Salvatos on 10 November 2021 at 8:11 pm UTC
Comandante Ñoñardo Nov 10, 2021
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThey can blame the IC shortage, but PROTON is not ready and a lot of big games won't run.
That only matters if your target audience doesnt understand that and the fact that most of the big tech channels have already promised videos on how to install windows on it when it launches i dont think thats much of a concern to the mainstream market.
Mohandevir Nov 10, 2021
questioner9 Nov 10, 2021
Quoting: Whitewolfe80"Big tech channels" is relative. I heard someone earlier saying Linus Tech Tips video about problems running Linux got 1.1 million views; also that he's one of the biggest tech channels. There are, what, over 100 million users on Steam? Most people buying one of these do not watch tech channels, big or otherwise, and are not going to install nuttin' on their new little gaming box except games downloaded from Steam.Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThey can blame the IC shortage, but PROTON is not ready and a lot of big games won't run.
That only matters if your target audience doesnt understand that and the fact that most of the big tech channels have already promised videos on how to install windows on it when it launches i dont think thats much of a concern to the mainstream market.
So it will be good if Proton is running games well. A couple extra months could make a significant difference.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 10 November 2021 at 8:54 pm UTC
Quoting: Purple Library GuyA couple extra months could make a significant difference.It does mean that 5.16 (with lots of handy dandy stuff for Van Gogh and the Deck) will be out before it launches, rather than probably out before it launches. So that's probably made someone a lot more relaxed.
Holzkohlen Nov 10, 2021
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me