It probably comes as no surprise that after Valve opened up pre-registration for the upcoming Steam Deck over the weekend, scalpers were straight onto it. Spotted on eBay, some scalpers are marking the handheld device up to USD$5000. Despite Valve’s admirable efforts to combat scalpers, unfortunately, the USD$5 ‘reserve now’ fee was simply not enough to deter what appears to be hundreds of re-sellers.
Holy shit. Those #SteamDeck scalper prices! pic.twitter.com/gaWdm6S1rc
— Rhonda Cox (@Level99RedMage) July 16, 2021
The demand for the Steam Deck appears to be a lot higher than Valve expected. As such, they’ve recently had to adjust the availability of the upcoming device which doesn’t yet have a certain delivery window. Valve is planning to start sending out order invitations later this year, which means that realistically, the device could ship any time after that. Before the delivery window disappeared, shipping had quickly slipped to Q3 2022, which is quite insane.
It’s worth noting that this doesn’t really affect us just yet. The Steam Deck has not been made officially reservable in Australia and at this stage, we’re not quite sure when it will be available to customers down under. While we wait for official news on how to get our hands on the device, you can click here to read more about the Steam Deck’s impressive specs as well as the difference between upcoming models.
