Steam Deck Reservations Appear to be a Mess, Surprising Nobody (Update)

Update: As of 3:45pm ET it seems that it is far easier for most people to get their reservations in. It appears maybe I can actually take the clown makeup off, at least for now. We’ll see how the pre-order rollout goes, but it looks like, at the very least, if you want to get on the list for a Steam Deck, you can. Let us know in the comments below if you got a reservation in successfully or not today. Original story below.

I’m writing this post quickly before I head off to try and find some clown makeup for myself. Why? Because I’m a joke, that’s why. Yesterday, when Valve announced the reservation system for their upcoming console, the Steam Deck, it seemed like they maybe had a plan that could actually work.

There were going to be restrictions on who could actually reserve the Steam Deck at first. You had to have an account that purchased something prior to June 2024, you have to pay a reservation fee (which would go towards your purchase), and there would be a queue to sort people out in the order they got in line.

My expectations were low, of course, given how difficult it has been for so many to get an Xbox Series X and a PlayStation 5 in recent months, but, at least Valve seemed to have a plan. Well, unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the plan to come apart at the seams.

In fact, it appears that for many people on Twitter at least (and in my own experience), the plan fell apart almost instantly.

Refreshing the reservation page at 1pm ET, I clicked the reserve button for the model I want and was treated to a long-loading page that eventually ended in errors. This persisted for a few minutes and I thought this was just going to be how it ended.

However, I did eventually get to a Steam page where I could begin my reservation process and put my credit card information in. Trying to confirm this, though, is as far as I ever got.

Trying to move past the credit card screen failed over and over again, asking me to try again in a minute. I tried spamming for a bit, and after repeated failures, I tried listening to the error message and waiting a minute or two in between attempts.

Eventually, I was treated to this error:

And… that’s a wrap.

I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn’t the only one so I popped on over to Twitter, typed in Steam Deck, and yeah… it looks like lots of people are having the same issues.

Some people are even saying that they weren’t even allowed to make a reservation because their account, according to Steam, didn’t meet the June 2024 purchase requirement, but are claiming that’s an error.

It’s entirely possible that a silent majority have been able to purchase their Steam Deck just fine. It’s also very possible that maybe in a few hours everything will be completely normal.

That said, my experience wasn’t great, looking around I don’t see anyone that had a positive experience, and with everything that I’ve seen over the last two console launches, I’ll have to lean towards yeah, it’s another console pre-order/reservation mess.

We’ll see if I’m wrong and if Valve is able these issues out over the next day or two.