Valve Opens Up On Steam Deck Availability But You May Not Be Happy
Valve has posted an update for its Steam Deck release plans and, well, things are moving but they may not be moving fast enough for everyone. The company has confirmed that it's begun sending out emails for the second wave of Q1 2022 reservations — a task that it says should be completed by the end of March. If the intended schedule holds, email waves three and four should follow on March 21st and March 28th, with emails for Q2 reservations planned to start going out in April of 2022.
The good news is this means more people who put in a reservation should be able to pay for their Steam Deck preorders. Granted it's still based on reservation order, so newer ones will likely still have to wait for a bit (possibly a few months) before Valve contacts them. But Valve has also stated that it's attempting to increase its output in order to better meet demand and hopefully reduce the amount of time customers will have to wait between making a reservation and having a Steam Deck in-hand. And it's planning on expanding availability to more countries by the end of 2022, though Japan is the only example given.
The not so good news
Unfortunately this doesn't impact the somewhat extensive wait times people are already experiencing. In fact, while reservations made just over a week ago projected Q2 2022 availability, Valve's Steam Deck page is already anticipating Q3 availability for new reserves. So if you reserved a Deck in February the expectation would be to receive it sometime between April and June, but if you did so now the expectation is now between July and September. Which is all despite the Steam Deck technically being "released" at this point.
It's not as much of a free-for-all as trying to get ahold of a PlayStation 5, and Valve has been fairly transparent with it's estimates and has kept customers in the loop. However, they still have to be willing to accept a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to eventually getting a Steam Deck. It also doesn't help that people who have already made Q1 reservations may still have to wait up until the end of the month to finalize their order.
If you've set up a reservation and want to check on its status, you can do so by logging into Valve's Steam Deck product page.