Tuesday, June 28th 2022
Valve Confirms Steam Deck Weekly Manufacturing "More Than Doubled"
Valve, handlers of the world's most popular digital games store and manufacturers of the Steam Deck, have announced that they've been able to more than double weekly production of the handheld console. Due to the production "picking up", as Valve says it, the company expects to double the number of handhelds shipped each week. This is especially good news for users that were expecting to receive their devices in the 3Q - shipments for these particular orders will begin on June 30th.
Valve doesn't make it clear what exactly was bottlenecking production. Manufacturing and logistics have been showing signs of normalization following a couple of years with snag after snag due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine. Overwhelming demand for graphics chips across the product spectrum may have pushed Valve to accept a smaller pie of AMD chips than the company would like to, and might be one of the reasons the company was forced to extend deliveries of pre-orders for the device.
At the same time, a number of components experienced bottlenecks, overwhelming demand, and a price crunch following lowered supply, including power regulating chips and even some battery-related materials, so the issue might not be entirely related to the APU itself - as much as AMD has had its hands full - for a while - with providing chips not only for its discrete cards, but also for the latest-generation consoles. All in all, this is great news for Steam Deck users in Valve's waitlist, as their order could be shipped that much faster.
Sources:
Valve @ Twitter, via Tom's Hardware
Valve doesn't make it clear what exactly was bottlenecking production. Manufacturing and logistics have been showing signs of normalization following a couple of years with snag after snag due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine. Overwhelming demand for graphics chips across the product spectrum may have pushed Valve to accept a smaller pie of AMD chips than the company would like to, and might be one of the reasons the company was forced to extend deliveries of pre-orders for the device.
25 Comments on Valve Confirms Steam Deck Weekly Manufacturing "More Than Doubled"
www.techpowerup.com/296214/steam-deck-engineer-says-ssd-mods-will-significantly-reduce-lifetime-of-the-device
Valve drops an announcement that availability will be better.
Anyway, it looks like other companies are also picking up manufacturing devices that were basically impossible to manufacture for some time. For instance, Sony has just resumed production of their A7 II cameras after it was suspended due to parts shortage.
Its kinda like Sony would announce that they are ramping up production on the PS5 and then you saying they are trying to cover up "the whole PS5 dying with the "Slim" mod from DIYperks".
The last time I took a trip, I hooked my phone and one s controller, and got decent streaming performance upon arrival. On the plane, I played Retroarch .
The Steamdeck only purpose is for those who expect to be cutoff completely from a fat pipe / or for some reason think the weight of a good ultra portable laptop is too heavy (and are willing to put up with a tiny screen in-exchange).
steam decks handheld controls are fixed, so you'd better like them the way they are (instead of say, attaching that bluetoothj one-s controller to any laptop!) You also have a much poorer screen quality than the OLEDs most mid-range phone now ship with!)
A nice ultra portable gaming laptop would not work at all. A laptop would be impractical to bring with me to bed, to the toilet, back to bed again. A laptop might work okay to play games while I sit on the couch with my partner but I wouldn't do it. Even an ultra portable laptop wouldn't work well during a road trip. I have no imterest in buying a laptop. It isn't even a worthwhile comparison.
The Steam Deck feels good in my hands. I have heard that people with small hands struggle.
I really miss having a handheld, non-phone, gaming device like I used to with Nintendo products. I thought about getting a Switch. There are few games on the platform that I want and the games are expensive. In comparison a Steam Deck comes with my entire existing steam library, cheaper games on average, and isn't locked to a walled garden. I am not locked into buying from steam. I can buy from and play games purchased on other stores. The Steam Deck is exactly the kind of device I want.
It seems some people really don't understand the appeal of the Steam Deck. That's okay. You don't have to buy one. People like me will buy them and be happy. I did not have to explain my reasons. I hope it helps alleviate some peoples confusion.
The best estimates I have seen predict that Valve has sold approximately 1 million units. Valve isn't sharing that information so all we have are estimates. Given how long the reserved line is, I don't think Valve expected even this many units to sell either. The Steam Deck is selling better than I ever thought it would.
you're also glossing over the largest detail : not everyone liked the Steam Controller (and instead of just having hardware d-pads like everyone else including the switch, you're still stuck with abomination!) there's a huge amount of compromise for something that needs to be easy to get sales!