Three years later, the Steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming

How big is the handheld PC gaming industry?
Add it up, and that's just under 6 million shipments in three years.
Valve has now shipped upwards of 3.7 million Steam Decks and has quite possibly crossed 4 million by now.

[Brazz]

Given by how its talked up online and in gaming related podcast, you'd think this sold +20M.
Very weak number, Steam is almost nothing in the console market, not a rival for Nintendo or Playstation.

[ZycoFox]

I think you mean to say the Deck isn't, Steam itself certainly is.

[RaiderNation]

Dude, you KNOW that's what he means. Don't be so pedantic.

[Profchaos]

Agree all the hype all the praise I see for it and the vita has tripped it's sales.
I'm genuinely shocked by the low figures across the board.
There's double the PS vita units in the wild than their are modern portable gaming PC's

[Reaper22_]

They don't need to compete with home consoles. I don't think they intended to. How does it stack up to other portables? It's seems that those are good numbers and they have a big piece of that market. You don't need to outsell the competition to be successful. Bmw doesn't outsell GM but they're doing just fine.

[Brazz]

With all due respect, you wrong. Their current market is diminutive, Nintendo/Sony can sell more consoles in 1 year than Steam deck lifetime.

Sure, Steam is gigantic on PC, but their handheld results are weak. Maybe It will get better, but atm. it's barely a small "bleep" in the handheld console market.

[Vits]

Why would this even be considered a rival to Nintendo or PlayStation?

First, it is a computer, not a console. While it offers a console-like experience in some ways, that comparison only makes sense when viewed against a traditional PC. The average console user is far too casual for a device like this—just the complexity of its controller utility alone would likely overwhelm them.

Second, it is significantly more expensive than almost any other gaming console. The base model is the only version that comes close to console pricing, yet it still costs more than both a Nintendo Switch and an Xbox Series S. Even compared to a PS5 Digital, it is priced similarly but offers only a quarter of the internal storage.

Third, availability is another major issue. Unlike consoles, which are widely sold at major retailers worldwide, this device is not easily accessible. Even in the regions where it is officially sold, it is often unavailable in physical stores, forcing potential buyers to rely on online orders or niche distributors. That alone severely limits its reach.

Finally, its global availability is highly restricted. It is not sold in many key gaming markets, including three of the five countries with the highest number of Steam users. That means a significant portion of the PC gaming audience cannot even purchase it through official channels.

The Steam Deck is not a console, it's a Handheld Computer. And it clearly dominate that market even if it's fairly more limited in availability than it's direct competitors.

[S2Killinit]

Yeah its very weak numbers compared to what the impression was. I mean 3.7 to 4 million worldwide in 3 years in market is a blip.

[ActualWhiteMan]

You dim or something?

30,368,579 Currently online on steam as of typing this message. How many people are online actively playing on Nintendo Switch or Playstation right now?

Ill answer... Nowhere near that number... and the online gaming on PC/Steam is FREE.

[neutralgamer1992]

To make Consoles take hundreds of millions of R&D while these handheld systems should be pretty cost effective. I think portable handheld like deck and rog are just getting started and as they move forward things will change. Deck should be available at bestbuy and Amazon. Besides switch there wasnt much of a portable market and now there seems to be some intrigue

It's hard to compare these 1st generation handhelds to established platforms like Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo

[Inverno]

People really love to play ignorant when they can prove themselves right. PlayStation is almost 30 years old and Ninty has been doing this gaming stuff since the early Arcade days. They're a household name, synonymous with gaming, massive companies that advertise themselves to the mass market. Valve hasn't bothered advertising the Deck to the mass market, have only ever bothered targeting those that would be into a device as niche as a handheld PC, and only sells em new thru Steam (refurbished thru GS but who the fk even goes to GS anymore?).
No shi they won't be doing mainstream console numbers, the thing isn't mainstream in any way, shape or form. Fanboyism is a plague.

[SegaSaturn669]

Valve is a small company. The SD is an amazing piece of kit. It gets lots of updates and runs switch games amazingly well. https://www.youtube.com/wat... Excited to see steamos come to more devices in the future.

[Miacosa]

Let me say first I like the Steam Deck but it's funny the number of subdivisions that need to be made to categorize these low sales numbers as good.

[badz149]

the very definition of overhyped but undersold

[Ratchet23]

I really thought it was around 20 million units sold by now.
4 million in 3 years is just ridiculous.

[Jingsing]

Please don't post spam rumors (The Verge) to try and counter the more popular story on N4G that the Steam Deck has factually not sold well. Just makes you look worse than you already are.

[StoneTitan]

"sold well" is very subjective.
If you expect 500'000 sold and you sell 4 mill its very good.
Ps portal sold around 4% of ps5 installbase. So thats around 3mill and we already know sony said its selling beyond their expectations so it has definately "sold well"
Yet you would say it did not. See?

[Jingsing]

We already know what is subjective, Valve entered the console space and didn't sell a lot. There is no moving goal posts or any of this dipping your toes in and out to try and protect them from bad numbers. It is what it is a flop.