Valve is doubling the number of Steam Decks it supplies to customers, the company announced Monday. “Production has increased and after today we will be shipping more than double the amount of Steam Decks every week!” Valve said in a tweet from the official Steam Deck account†And in response to a question from my colleague Sean Hollister, Valve designer Lawrence Yang laid out the change: more clearly: “In previous weeks we shipped x units/week to customers, from this week we will ship 2x units/week.”
If you’ve been eagerly refreshing your inbox every Monday and Thursday for the chance to pre-order your Steam Deck pre-order, the increased production could be a sign that you may be able to get your device sooner than you bargained for. My own reservation has not changed from the estimate for the third quarter on the Steam Deck Steam page, but maybe that email is coming at the beginning of the quarter now. And if you’re also in that Q3 window, you should start watching your inbox on June 30, as Valve said the first Q3 order emails will go out then.
Hello! Good news on the production front. We’ve just sent out the last batch of Q2 emails and we’ll start sending Q3 reservation emails on the 30th.
Production has increased and after today we will be shipping more than double the amount of Steam Decks every week! pic.twitter.com/kAHE0zRrV7— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) June 27, 2022
You’ll want to keep a close eye on that email, because Valve only gives you 72 hours to actually complete an order once it’s shipped. However, if you miss that window, Valve will introduce you contact steam support – the company recently clarified that it offers a “several days” grace period.
The Steam Deck has stayed at the top of the Steam charts during nine of the last 11 weeks, according to SteamDB. That ranking follows top sellers by income — given that the Steam Deck starts at $399, a few Steam Deck orders can equate to a lot of sales of an individual game — but it’s still an indication that Valve is selling the portable gaming PCs as fast as it gets. she can make and that there was quite a bit of demand.
But there’s still plenty to catch up on: an unofficial tracker curated by Reddit user Fammy suggests that Valve is still taking orders of the premium 512GB model in the UK from the first hour they went on sale in July 2021. According to that tracker, Valve is also still fulfilling day one reservations in the US.
While Steam Deck’s production has increased, the official dock was delayed earlier this month due to the “late spring” release timeline. But when it arrives, it has improved specs from what Valve originally announced.