Steam Deck production better than expected, Q4 emails already going out

Every time they "ramp up production" and are able to deliver more fast to customers, I fear that it is because too many people have cancelled their order.

I personally don't see a problem with that? All it does it change who gets Decks, not how many are produced. Valve know they have a winner on their hands, they're not going to suddenly stop production even it a bunch of people cancel their reservations (which be for all kinds of reasons). And if anything, it ensures Decks are getting into the hands of people who really want them and are likely to be more favorable and spread glowing reviews about them to their friends rather than people who were on the fence.

Every time they "ramp up production" and are able to deliver more fast to customers, I fear that it is because too many people have cancelled their order.

I personally don't see a problem with that? All it does it change who gets Decks, not how many are produced. Valve know they have a winner on their hands, they're not going to suddenly stop production even it a bunch of people cancel their reservations (which be for all kinds of reasons). And if anything, it ensures Decks are getting into the hands of people who really want them and are likely to be more favorable and spread glowing reviews about them to their friends rather than people who were on the fence.

The problem would be that the "automatically sold out" time would end earlier.
We want huge demand, not people cancelling their orders en masse.

Really disappointed with the price increases (yet again) of the 40 series cards. 4090 is $1799USD! what the hell!

Had my deck since July

For all those that are about to get it: It's absolutely worth it! The freedom to play any game whether it's an emulated console game, emulated arcade games, older PC games from GOG[1] or new AAA games! All of this.. on a portable device that you can stick in your backpack and play while travelling[2].

It's the best handheld console since the PSP imo.

Also, it seems interesting how quickly production is ramping up, I can't help but wonder if it wasn't only about a parts shortage that was an issue.

I mean hear me out, Valve came up with this console as effectively a new experiment and they quickly got a lot of reservations, but that wouldn't have been a lot of money in comparison to the cost of manufacturing all those reservations (since it's only £5 per reservation). They couldn't be sure how many of those reservations would turn into actual sales of the device or be cancelled.

So they would have to fund the manufacturing of the devices, but being an experimental idea and device they probably didn't want to produce too many units initially as to not waste money. The Steam Deck is not their only product nor a primary product so they can't just throw all of their money at it, since they have other things to fund too. Probably remembering their steambox experiments (in case the device flops).

Valve has also hinted that these devices don't exactly yield a huge profit for them. Valve would have done several "risk assessments" for their investments into the deck which would have dictated how much money they would throw at it initially.

So my guess is the delay was "somewhat" intentional. As more and more devices sell, the manufacturing expense pot fills up and they can put the money from the sales of those devices towards manufacturing more to hopefully make a profit overall.

So I believe production is speeding up because it was successful, because people completed their reservations and paid. Thus they can put more money into getting more units made for people to buy.

Don't get me wrong, there absolutely has a been a parts shortage in the industry as well which hasn't helped. But I don't believe it's the only cause of the speed up that's happening.

[1] Yes, I still use GOG and buy games from there regularly. I much prefer my games don't have invasive DRM if possible so I'll opt for DRM free first and I also like a lot of older games. I got all the classic SimCity games from there for example, which yup you can put on deck I don't care much about the launcher argument. The games are DRM free, you don't need an official launcher to use them, just download and run them or use Lutris or some other launcher. We already have what feels like a million different launchers as it is, I don't need yet another launcher tyvm.

[2] Don't deck and drive, let someone else take the wheel.

[2] Don't deck and drive, let someone else take the wheel.

Letting someone else take the deck is not an option

So my guess is the delay was "somewhat" intentional.

I also suspected the delay might be slightly desirable if not intentional on Valve's side..
The Deck didn't exactly launch in a perfect state. There were software issues, hardware quality control issues, and not to mention plenty of games that weren't compatible at launch that are now.

I suspect the first couple of months were 'an unofficial launch delay'. Rather than an actual delay, just ship a very small number of units, get lots of feedback, make fixes, treat it like early access basically.. Then once the issues are largely resolved? Ramp up production!

It's only a conspiracy theory but I could imagine someone at Valve considering it. I wouldn't hate them for it either, if it was on purpose, it wasn't a bad idea and has certainly worked out well in the long run.

So my guess is the delay was "somewhat" intentional.

I also suspected the delay might be slightly desirable if not intentional on Valve's side..
The Deck didn't exactly launch in a perfect state. There were software issues, hardware quality control issues, and not to mention plenty of games that weren't compatible at launch that are now.

I suspect the first couple of months were 'an unofficial launch delay'. Rather than an actual delay, just ship a very small number of units, get lots of feedback, make fixes, treat it like early access basically.. Then once the issues are largely resolved? Ramp up production!

It's only a conspiracy theory but I could imagine someone at Valve considering it. I wouldn't hate them for it either, if it was on purpose, it wasn't a bad idea and has certainly worked out well in the long run.

I'd say there are still quite some things to do for them regarding both software and QA :)

Remember that setting up a workshop for such complicated devices is also a hefty optimization goal with room for experiments and failures... They probably started with 1-3 lanes and now that they have a blueprint, they can scale by adding more lanes. I'd guess that setting up new lanes worked much quicker then they expected and that enabled the explosion in production. Among other things. :)

Anyway, the fact that demand on this incredible piece of tech is still rising is my news of the month, maybe year. This is so huge for Linux Gaming and existing SteamDeck users. *party*

Remember that setting up a workshop for such complicated devices is also a hefty optimization goal with room for experiments and failures... They probably started with 1-3 lanes and now that they have a blueprint, they can scale by adding more lanes. I'd guess that setting up new lanes worked much quicker then they expected and that enabled the explosion in production. Among other things. :)

This now makes me want a manufacturing logistics game about ramping up Steam Deck production to feed an insatiable customer base while dealing with supply chain issues. Make it happen, Valve!

The problem would be that the "automatically sold out" time would end earlier.
We want huge demand, not people cancelling their orders en masse.

Well, given the latest info from Valve reported in this article, at least if people are canceling there are even more people placing new orders since the number keeps going up.