As we have seen over the years with high-end GPUs, the PS5, and many other new hardware, product scarcity can lead to dishonest people buying in bulk and reselling their supplies to the public at ridiculously high prices.

Valve's newly announced Steam Deck, which will be available for pre-order this Friday, is expected to be in high demand from PC gamers (Gabe Newell said he expects to sell millions of units), so a supply shortage could be a reality. (Remember that Valve's VR gear, the Index, was unavailable for a long time because demand far exceeded supply.)

However, Valve has taken several steps to prevent hardware resellers from pre-ordering Steam Deck in large quantities and reselling it at inflated prices to those who missed out. Resellers will no longer be able to simply create a large number of new Steam accounts and accumulate large numbers of pre-orders:

"We are aware of the potential for unauthorized resale, and as an additional safeguard to ensure a fair ordering process, we have added a requirement that resellers have purchased on Steam before June 2021 Valve's FAQ states, "We have added a condition that the reseller must have purchased the game on Steam prior to June 2021.

This means that those who register a large number of new Steam accounts to reserve multiple Steam Decks are out of luck. Although this particular restriction will only be in effect for 48 hours, there are a few other rules that will help prevent resellers from buying up Steam Decks. First, you must pay $5 to reserve a Steam Deck. This is not that much, but at least some sort of payment needs to be tied to your account. And only one Steam Deck can be reserved and ordered per person.

Hopefully this will prevent people from pre-ordering Steam Decks in large quantities and then selling them at inflated prices (and reduce the amount of accounts that pre-order Steam Decks that are then sold).

We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I am interested in reserving a Steam Deck (just one!) for myself. ), here's how it works if you're interested in reserving one:

If you have a Steam account and have purchased with that account before June 2021, starting Friday, July 16 at 10am PT, go to this page on the Steam Deck website on the Steam Deck website beginning Friday, July 16 at 10:00 a.m. PT.

If you have not purchased using your Steam account prior to June 2021, you will need to wait 48 hours until Sunday, July 18 to reserve your Steam Deck.

A $5 reservation fee must be paid to reserve a Steam Deck. Valve states, "Once you submit your reservation, it will be placed in a queue. Once it is available, an email will be sent to you in the order in which you placed your pre-order."

If you want to cancel your reservation, no problem. Just go to the same page and cancel. If you cancel within 30 days of your reservation, you will receive a $5 refund to whichever payment method you used; after 30 days, you will receive a refund to your Steam wallet instead. Similarly, if you pre-order a Steam Deck and it becomes available but your order is not placed in time (no time limit is specified), you will be refunded $5 for the pre-order fee.

Currently, only customers in the United States, Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom can pre-order Steam Deck. We expect this to change in the near future: Valve states that "availability will be expanded in the near future."

An important point to note is that no matter which of the three versions of Steam Deck you pre-order, you will have to order it when the time comes. Valve states, "When you are ready to order, you will only be able to purchase the Steam Deck model you pre-ordered."