Anyone who wants to get their hands on a console right now, or at least has tried it, already knows full well that the market makes it difficult. The semiconductor shortage and international logistics issues are a problem for manufacturers like Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo. And Valve will soon enter that circle with their Steam Deck.
The “portable gaming PC” as the company calls it, It is not one more among all the gadgets in the world electronics and we are already experiencing a first delay. The machine was due to launch in December 2021, but plans were eventually postponed until February 2022.
Steam Deck is on the right track, and it will arrive on time
The point is that after a first delay there are fears that it will happen again and that is why the company wanted to calm down a bit the murky waters and the uncertainty that hangs over the launch of Steam Deck.
In statements to PC player, Valve Greg Coomer, designer of the “console,” says the first delay was a painful step, but they point to February without any problem. It’s important to see here what expectations they have for your product, even if it won’t hit retail, Coomer assures us that it will ship thousands upon thousands of units in the first few months.
We feel like we are on the right track. We are still upset that we had to move from the end of this year to the start of the next. But yes, all signs are that we will be able to ship in February.
This is a real product launch, thousands of people will immediately receive Decks as soon as we can ship them. But even talking about thousands would be quite low compared to the volumes we are signing for the first few months.
At Valve, they aim to sell millions of units within the device’s first year of life. Consider that although the rate will decrease over time, they will continue to have a stable volume of shipments.
We’re going to have a rollout that will look like a large number of users at first and then expand over time, rather than having the greatest impact on day one, and then generally decrease after that. If you extend the timeline to 2022 and 2023, we plan to constantly build our numbers throughout that time, to the point that there will be several million customers if things go the way we think they are, customers. who will be using Steam Deck at the end of that year or so, through 2023.