How to reserve the new Steam Deck

Valve recently unveiled the Steam Deck, the company’s first handheld console set to compete directly with the Nintendo Switch. The announcement promises to bring “powerful, portable PC gaming” to players at three different price points based on the version you purchase.

But now, prospective buyers are scrambling to figure out how to reserve a Steam Deck. The process is relatively simple, though. Reservations will open on Friday, July 16 at 12pm CT on the official Steam Deck launch page, where buyers will be prompted to log into their Steam account. From there, people can choose from three versions of the handheld console to reserve.

Valve is also charging a small reservation fee to “ensure an orderly and fair ordering process for customers,” which should also help prevent scalping and bot purchases. The company also added a requirement that the reserver must have made a purchase on Steam prior to June 2021 for the first 48 hours of reservation availability in another attempt to curb scalpers and bots.

When you submit a reservation, you will be put in a queue—once there is available inventory, the customer will be emailed in the order the reservations were made. Order invitations should be sent out by December 2021. “We will make every effort to convert all reservations to orders, but we are not able to guarantee availability,” Valve said.

Additionally, only customers in the United States, Canada, European Union, and the United Kingdom can reserve a Steam Deck, and only one console can be reserved and ordered per customer. You can only purchase the Steam Deck model that you reserved once order availability is opened.

For more details, check out the official Steam website.