Valve will fulfil all current Steam Deck reservations "by the end of the year"
Following supply chain improvements.
Following Valve's pledge to more than double its Steam Deck shipments back in June, the company has announced that improvements to its supply chain mean it'll now be able to fulfil all current reservations for the handheld gaming PC "by the end of the year".
Steam Deck has, of course, been in massive demand since its unveiling last July, with wait times for reservations rapidly stretching into this year. Unfortunately, supply chain issues forced Valve to delay initial shipments from the end of 2021 into this year, with further rollouts perhaps not as rapid as Valve would have liked.
We've had plenty of updates since then - Valve said it would be ramping up production into "the hundreds of thousands" in March, while June saw it announce shipments would more than double in the coming months - and the latest brings great news for those that already have Steam Deck reservations.
In a post shared on Steam, Valve explained, "Many of the supply chain shortfalls that affect Steam Deck are gradually clearing up, and we're continuing to ramp production, so we're able to produce more Decks faster than ever before." This, it said, meant it was "going to be able to fulfil demand sooner than [it] had estimated for everyone in the reservation queue".
As of today, all current reservation windows have been updated, meaning most customers that were previously in the "Q4 or later" window have been moved into the Q3 slot (that is, July to September), while everyone else is "now solidly in the 'Q4 (October-December)' window". In other words, as long as you're currently in the reservation queue, you'll now get your Steam Deck "by the end of this year".
Valve notes all new reservations will initially be put into the Q4 bucket, meaning they'll also get their Steam Deck this year, but warns that once the bucket fills up, ETAs will begin falling into the first quarter of 2023.
"We're happy we'll be able to get Steam Decks into your hands faster than we had estimated," Valve concluded. "It has been great to see all the positive feedback, impressions, and amazing things you all have already been doing with your Steam Decks. We can't wait to see even more in the coming months."