Over the weekend someone at Valve must have remembered the password to the company YouTube channel because it now has a new upload after eight months of inactivity, and the first video since then is a trailer for the Steam Deck.
The handheld PC now has a trailer simply called “Introducing Steam Deck” which is rather matter-of-factly affair. There’s no big CGI here or preposterous claims about what the hardware can do, just some products shots and lifestyle footage of people using the Steam Deck.
Valve’s sole bragging in the video is dubbing the Steam Deck the “most powerful handheld in the world”, a claim that it can back up with its Zen 2 AMD APU and 16GB of RAM.
While we’re happy to see more innovation in the space of handheld gaming PCs it’s a bit odd that Valve has chosen now to release this trailer. Reservations opened on the Steam Back back in the middle of July where it dominated the sales charts on the platform.
Reservations from that period are now closed with shipping beginning for those early adopters starting in December this year. Those who missed this window will need to reserve for the next shipping allotment, which is slated to begin in Q2 2022.
Well we should add a caveat here: only customers in certain regions can reserve and then ultimately buy the Steam Deck. As we covered when this device was revealed, South Africa and many other countries are not supported. The US, UK, EU and Canada are the only territories being supported for now, but Valve has indicated that more countries will be roped in next year.
As such the link included in the trailer, which leads here, won’t do you much good if you’re not in one of the supported regions. Following the reserve steps simply leads you to an all familiar type of message: “This item is not available for reservation in your country”.
For those wondering the last upload to the official Valve YouTube channel, before this trailer, was for Operation Broken Fang in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. A trailer for that event was uploaded on 4th December 2020.
