Valve are taking measures to stop scalpers nabbing Steam Decks
New Steam accounts won't be allowed to reserve one until 48 hours after pre-orders go live
So, how about that Steam Deck, huh? Last night, Valve announced their foray into the world of portable gaming with a new handheld device that will let you play your PC games. It looks brilliant, honestly, but if you're someone who's been paying attention to the dramas with new graphics card and console releases over the last year, you may have some worries about scalpers.
Fortunately, Valve seem to have anticipated this, and are putting a number of measures in place to stop pesky resellers from buying up all the new Steam Decks when reservations open later today. Importantly, fresh Steam accounts won't be allowed to reserve one until 48 hours after pre-orders go live.
You can check out the reservations page here, and scroll to the bottom to find an FAQ where it mentions Valve's scalper-stopping plans. Reservations for the Switch-like device go live today at 10am PT / 6pm BST, and you have to be logged into an existing Steam account to grab one.
"We are aware of potential unauthorized resellers, and as an additional safeguard to ensure a fair ordering process, we've added a requirement that the reserver has made a purchase on Steam prior to June 2021 for the first 48 hours of reservation availability," Valve say.
On top of that, only one can be reserved per customer and there's a reservation fee (albeit a pretty small one of just £4 / $5). Valve add the reason for this is that it "gives a clearer signal of intent to purchase, which gives better data to balance supply chain, inventory, and regional distribution leading up to launch."
Scalpers can be wily, so it wouldn't surprise me to see a few Steam Deck pre-orders up for sale for extortionate prices on Ebay next week. However, with just these few little security things in place, it'll hopefully be a lot better than what happened with all of Nvidia and AMD's new graphics cards over the last nine months. There are still a bunch of those up for resale for at least a couple hundred pounds more than they should be.
Reservations for the Steam Deck open today at 6pm BST (10am PDT), so here's that link again if you fancy putting your name down. There are three versions of the Steam Deck, starting with a 64GB one for £349 / $399.
What are your thoughts on the Steam Deck so far, reader? Graham reckons they're bad news for the Epic Games Store, though very good news for people who want to play indies on the go.
