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PayPalValve 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.
ElectricPrism Nov 11, 2021
slaapliedje Nov 11, 2021
Quoting: questioner9I wonder if it will now ship on Two's-day (Tuesday 22/2/2022)Ha, following the Dreamcast's 9/9/99?
Philadelphus Nov 11, 2021
Quoting: ShabbyXI was trying to think how that would work considering it's much more similar to existing controls than VR controls are, but I guess the Deck does haveQuoting: HoriQuoting: ShabbyXValve is pretty clearly delaying this so they can finish Half-Life 3 as a Deck-only game.I wouldn't mind that (in fact, I think it would be good for the Deck and for Linux in general), but only as long as it's just a timed exclusive which will eventually find its way to other platforms and also other stores (not just Steam).
While I obviously said that as a joke, it's not too far fetched for them to release a game that's highly specific to Deck's controls to the point that it wouldn't be really playable on desktop. They did that for VR after all, didn't they?
- Gyroscope,
- Touch screen,
- More buttons on the back than most controllers,
so I suppose if someone really wanted to they could make a game that only really works on a Deck.
slaapliedje Nov 12, 2021
Quoting: PhiladelphusThe deck is probably closer to Steam Controllers (as far as configurability) than your standard xbox 360 layout style controller.Quoting: ShabbyXI was trying to think how that would work considering it's much more similar to existing controls than VR controls are, but I guess the Deck does haveQuoting: HoriQuoting: ShabbyXValve is pretty clearly delaying this so they can finish Half-Life 3 as a Deck-only game.I wouldn't mind that (in fact, I think it would be good for the Deck and for Linux in general), but only as long as it's just a timed exclusive which will eventually find its way to other platforms and also other stores (not just Steam).
While I obviously said that as a joke, it's not too far fetched for them to release a game that's highly specific to Deck's controls to the point that it wouldn't be really playable on desktop. They did that for VR after all, didn't they?
- Gyroscope,
- Touch screen,
- More buttons on the back than most controllers,
so I suppose if someone really wanted to they could make a game that only really works on a Deck.
In fact, I want to say with the exception of a second analog stick, and I think 4 instead of two buttons on the bottom, the control capabilities are identical. Oh yeah, and the touch screen, I suppose. But hopefully outside of say RTS games, not many will use the touch screen, as that's how I think mobile games are terrible...
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