Steam Deck Gets an Official Release Date, First Units to Ship in February

Steam Deck will go on sale starting on February 25, with the first batch of handhelds set to ship on February 28.

In a blog post, Steam says customers will begin getting invites “shortly after 10 am PT” on February 25 and will have 3 days, or 72 hours, from the receipt of their order email to make their purchase. If a person doesn't make an order at this time, the person next in the queue will get the chance to place an order.

Valve says it is hoping to send emails for orders out in batches weekly.

Order emails will be sent out in the same order as the reservations, and Valve will only let you order the Steam Deck model that you originally reserved. The initial reservation deposit will also be applied to the final price of the Steam Deck at checkout.

The Steam Deck was originally slated to start shipping at the end of 2021, but Valve announced that despite its best efforts, the global chip shortage hit them as well and the window was delayed to Q1 2022.

The Steam Deck is Valve’s take on a handheld PC gaming device and should be able to run your Steam library on the go. Some games will be better optimized for the Steam Deck and a new version of Steam OS will be used for the handheld.

There are three different models available for order, a 64GB eMMC model, 256GB NVMe SSD model, and a 512GB NVMe SSD model.

IGN was the first outlet to go hands-on with the Steam Deck and you can read our full preview here, along with an interview with Valve founder Gabe Newell on why Valve decided to enter the handheld market.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.