Valve Steam Deck portable delayed until 2022 because of supply chain issues

The Switch style handheld PC from Valve has been delayed by two months, as the Steam Deck misses its chance to be a Christmas present.

Thanks to the pandemic, the last two years have been nothing but a series of delays and Valve’s Steam Deck being pushed back to 2022 isn’t even the first hardware one – given the problems the Playdate handheld has had.

Valve has announced that the much anticipated portable gaming PC has been delayed until February 2022 due to component shortages and supply chain issues, of the sort that are affecting many companies around the world.

A December launch always seemed a bit sketchy though, and Valve were already sold out, so if you haven’t pre-ordered already then this doesn’t really make any difference.

‘We’re sorry we won’t be able to make our original ship date. We’ll continue working to improve reservation dates based on the new timeline, and will keep folks updated as we go’, said Valve.

Everyone who’s pre-ordered will keep their place in line, while Valve will start to take new pre-orders in February. However, there were already concerns that some current orders wouldn’t be fulfilled until late 2022, so that could be pushing 2023 by now.

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Although obviously designed for portable play, and greatly inspired by the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck is a surprisingly powerful piece of hardware, with a custom APU that claims to be able to run any game on Steam to at least some level.

It’s not only powerful but surprisingly cheap, at just £350 for the 64GB model – compared to £310 for the considerably less powerful Switch OLED model (which is also near impossible to get at the moment).