Heads up, $5 Steam Deck reservations are now live on Steam

Image for Heads up, $5 Steam Deck reservations are now live on Steam
(Image credit: Valve)

While Valve says it's putting in special measures to prevent bots and resellers getting their hands on its new handheld PC, the Steam Deck, if you want to get your hands on one this year you're likely going to have to move swiftly. Reservations are now open for the portable PC, and we don't reckon they'll stick around for long.

You can reserve a Steam Deck from today, July 16, at 10 am PT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST / 7 pm CEST via the Steam Store. However, this only applies to people with Steam accounts that have made a purchase prior to June 2021.

For everyone that hasn't made a Steam account yet, or hasn't made a qualifying purchase, reservations will be available from Sunday, July 18. 

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(Image credit: Valve)

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You'll need to pay a $5 (£4) reservation fee, which will place you in a queue for a Steam Deck. Once there's a Steam Deck available, starting December, users will be emailed in the order in which they placed their reservation. First come, first serve, hence why it's best not to dawdle

Who knows how long it will take Valve to work through what's sure to be a lengthy list of reservations.

Reservations will only be available for customers from the United States, Canada, European Union, and UK at first, with availability starting sometime in 2022 for the rest of the world.

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Jacob Ridley
Managing Editor, Hardware

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking things as hardware writer at PCGamesN, and would go on to run the team as hardware editor. He joined PC Gamer's top staff as senior hardware editor before becoming managing editor of the hardware team, and you'll now find him reporting on the latest developments in the technology and gaming industries and testing the newest PC components.