Will Valve’s Steam Deck be available in the Philippines in 2022?

Valve unveiled the Steam Deck back in 2021, but will it get released in the Philippines sometime soon? Here's all the info.

ONE Store Beta Now Available

UPDATE (December 5, 2022): The Steam Deck is now available in the Philippines via a select local retailer.

The original article (August 8, 2022 version) reads:

Last year, Valve unveiled the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming device that seems to be Valve’s answer to the Nintendo Switch. Unlike the Switch which runs on an Nvidia Tegra X1 (which is an old SoC at this point), the Steam Deck has an AMD Zen 2 CPU and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU, much like the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Thanks to this, the Steam Deck promises to give users a true triple-A PC gaming experience while on the go.

Lots of gamers are probably interested in getting one, and a lot of gamers have likely already reserved their unit. But if you’re in the Philippines, here’s what you’ll be greeted with if you tried to reserve a unit back in 2021:

Yes, the Steam Deck is not available for reservation in the Philippines and has not been released since. But does this means the Steam Deck will not release in the country at all? Well, we believe Steam Deck will release in the Philippines, but only in limited quantities and not officially through Valve.

A few years ago, Valve released the Steam Controller. And while the controller was not made available in the country through Valve, the Steam Controller did show up in local gaming retailers such as Datablitz and iTECH.

While there’s no guarantee that the Steam Deck will also be released by retailers here, there’s a possibility, especially as iTECH seems to already be gauging interest for the Steam Deck in the PH. If it does release though, we might have to wait a bit longer to get it, especially as it’s still available in only limited quantities. Plus, it’ll likely be much more expensive than its USD price tag when it arrives here.

Valve launches the Steam Deck in select countries in Asia

Though there’s also a chance that Valve will officially launch the Steam Deck in the country. After all, Valve recently launched the Deck in select Asian territories, including Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

Given this, there might be hope that Valve’s handheld gaming PC will get a PH release down the line.

In case you missed it, the Steam Deck is a handheld gaming device that runs on Steam OS and promises to be able to play even triple-A PC titles. The Steam Deck features a 7-inch LCD touch screen, and it packs up to a 512GB SSD.

Here are the official Steam Deck specs (via PC Gamer):

CPUAMD Zen 2
Core count4-core/8-thread
CPU clock speed2.4–3.5GHz
GPUAMD RDNA 2
GPU Compute Units8
GPU clock speed1–1.6GHz
RAM16GB LPDDR5 @ 5,500MT/s
Storage64GB eMMC / 256GB NVMe SSD / 512GB NVMe SSD
Display7-inch LCD touchscreen
Resolution1280 x 800
Refresh rate60Hz
AudioStereo speakers, 3.5mm jack, dual mics, USB Type-C/Bluetooth
ConnectivityWi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB Type-C with DisplayPort 1.4 support
Battery40Whr
Size11.7 x 4.6 x 1.8-inch (298 x 117 x 49mm)
WeightApproximately 1.47 lbs (669 grams)
Price$399 (64GB) / $529 (256GB) / $649 (512GB)

For more info on the Steam Deck, visit the device’s official website.