Valve announced the Steam Deck yesterday as the Switch Pro that Nintendo refuses to make. Inside the Steam Deck is the latest AMD chipsets promising the same computational power as a PS4 but in a handheld form factor.
We're still not quite sure what the demand will be like for the Steam Deck, but if it's even half as much as the PS5 and Xbox Series X, these things will be flying off digital store shelves in such quantities that they'll be out of stock within hours. And just like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, scalpers are likely eyeing the Deck as a way to make a quick buck.
However, Valve is wise to the ways of the scalper and has already implemented procedures that should prevent scalpers from grabbing every Deck before everyone else can.
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On the bottom of the Steam Deck's website is an FAQ section that explains the whole reservation process and how Valve plans to stop scalpers in their tracks. First, there's a one per customer limit–something that has never stopped a scalper before, but it's there in black and white in case a scalper gets caught red-handed. After that, the reservation fee of $5 means anyone trying to gobble up a bunch of pre-orders will have to shell out a lot of cash to do it.
But what truly thwarts scalpers is this line right here:
"We are aware of potential unauthorized resellers, and as an additional safeguard to ensure a fair ordering process, we've added a requirement that the reserver has made a purchase on Steam prior to June 2021 for the first 48 hours of reservation availability."
So, for the first two days of Deck reservations, only real Steam users can reserve a Deck. This means scalpers that make a bunch of Steam accounts just to buy a bunch of Decks will be stopped dead in their tracks.
And it makes a lot of sense–you need Steam to play the Deck anyway, so only real people would have made Steam purchases prior to June 2021. Sony and Microsoft could even do the same thing for their next big console release to shut down scalpers too.
For the full details on how to reserve your own Steam Deck, check out our breakdown here. Pre-orders go live today at 10 AM PST (1 PM EST).
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