Valve has announced that the Steam Deck, its portable computer gaming handheld, will be delayed by two months. The first units will now begin shipping in February 2022, instead of its planned December 2021 release date.
In a blog post Valve cited the global supply chain issues and material shortages as reasons for the delay. These issues have affected many consumer devices from other game consoles to cars and more.
"We're sorry about this — we did our best to work around the global supply chain issues, but due to material shortages, components aren't reaching our manufacturing facilities in time for us to meet our initial launch dates," Valve says.
"Based on our updated build estimates, Steam Deck will start shipping to customers in February 2022. This will be the new start date of the reservation queue."
Valve says that reservations will not change and those reservation holders will keep their place in line, but starting at the new date. Meaning if you were lucky enough to get a Steam Deck reserved for December 2021, your unit will begin shipping in February 2022.
The Steam Deck is yet another hardware device to be hit by the continuing chip shortage that has affected consumer tech during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite manufacturers' best efforts this ongoing chip shortage looks set to continue into 2022 and will keep impacting the availability of hardware like the Steam Deck but also PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and GPU cards.
IGN has a full hands-on impression of the Steam Deck as well as other exclusive details from our IGN First so check those out to learn more about the Valve handheld.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
