Valve’s popular handheld finally launches in Australia with orders starting in November.
Two years after it’s launch in the United States and Europe, Valve’s handheld gaming PC is finally launching in Australia.
While grey import devices have been readily available from online retailers, Valve will begin selling the devices directly to customers from today.
Why did it take so long? Lawrence Yang designer of the console says it is surprisingly complex task to launch in a new region.
“Um, very boring answer, but that's just how long it took to line everything up. So, uh, from the beginning we wanted to ship in Australia,” he said.
”We got certified and everything got ready for it, but, uh, doing the financial due diligence and then setting up all the logistics, and now we're finally able to ship here. “
“What's good though, is now that we've done it, any future hardware products will be able to ship because we've already done all of the legwork and got the infrastructure in place.”
Hardware engineer, Yazan Aldehayyat says player behaviour has changed since the release of the handheld, with users extendin their playtime on the same sort of games that were popular on PC.
“Well, after the Steam Deck, they're playing more games now they're playing for more time and I think that makes sense, right? Like the fact that you could play in anywhere,“ he said.
Designer Jay Shaw said while the top games on Steam Deck often mirrored to the top charts over all there were definitely titles that suited the handheld better.
”A lot of times we'll talk internally about, oh, this game is really, really, really good on Deck. This is like our favorite deck game right now. But I think that has a lot to do with, you know, this is a game that I can play in, you know, bite-sized chunks,” he said.
Players in Australia can start wishlisting the devices immediately, with orders beginning in November directly through Steam. Australian prices are below
You can add a Steam Deck to your wishlist now
