Valve has been quiet on Steam Deck sales so far, but thanks to GamingOnLinux we might finally have some new info. David Edmundson from KDE was giving a talk about the Steam Deck to KDE’s Akademy 2022 conference, when he revealed the system has crossed a million shipments.
KDE created KDE Plasma, a Linux desktop environment used by the Steam Deck when in desktop mode. Edmundson works for KDE, so whilst he isn’t speaking on behalf of Valve, he’s sure to have some degree of understanding about the system’s sales performance. The talk given by Edmundson can be found here, with his comments on Steam Deck sales found at about 29:45. He also adds that Valve is currently still working through back orders.
The Steam Deck is not sold on store shelves, so reaching a million shipments from Valve directly is an impressive milestone for the handheld system. It may be considerably smaller than the Nintendo Switch’s 100 million sales, but they serve very different markets. Valve’s first entry in the portable gaming market has certainly been a success for the niche market it currently serves.
The rise of the Steam Deck in gaming spaces has also brought along a lot of potential competitors. Just last week, Razer teased a new gaming handheld in partnership with Verizon that can play games locally like the Steam Deck, as well as having the ability to stream console or cloud games. Also entering the market is Logitech, which has a gaming handheld on the way that focuses exclusively on cloud gaming. Whether any of them will reach the same success as the Steam Deck remains to be seen, but for now Valve is on top.
Are you one of the million Steam Deck owners? Let us know in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more gaming news.
that’s a lot, im still waiting for my order