Report: Steam Deck to Surpass an Estimated 3 Million Units Sold Lifetime in 2023 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 10 April 2023 / 27,605 Views
Lifetime sales of Valve's Steam Deck is going to surpass three million units in 2023, according to a report from research firm Omdia.
The report claims Valve sold 1.62 million units of the Steam Deck in 2022, which is expected to grow by 14 percent to 1.85 million units in 2023.
"It is clear Steam Deck remains a niche portion of the PC gaming landscape," said Senior Analyst covering Games at Omdia James McWhirter. "However, this is unlikely to deter Valve, which has plans beyond just selling hardware units."
McWhirter added, "Valve’s end game goes beyond Steam Deck itself, thus its relatively small installed base is unlikely to be an area of concern in the short term. Valve is focused on utilizing early usage data to refine and improve the SteamOS software powering Steam Deck – software which has already enabled the company to translate a large portion of Steam games from the Windows operating system.
"Valve aims to increase its addressable market via Steam for Chromebooks and Tesla vehicles, now that it has reduced its dependence on Windows."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
being in the top of the steam charts every week made it seem like the Deck sold so much more, surprised to see it only sold like 1.6 millions in 2022, but again it make sense since there is no much incentive to buy it without exclusives, most people who use steam don't really care about the portability, it's hard to sell the handheld idea to people who grow up playing on PC
Steam charts goes by revenue, not sales. So it makes sense that Steam Deck is always at the top just because of how expensive it is compared to games. Cheapest model is $400.
oh! thanks for clarifying that, it's probably my fault for just looking at the steam chart list without reading the full articles that explain it LOL.
I think the rankings are based on revenue, not number of units sold.
Keep in mind that the Steamdeck has NOT launched world wide yet.
And is only being sold on Steam
I wonder how valve views the sales performance of the steam deck. If it is accurate, as mentioned in this article, that they don't really care about how many units it sells, that they're just using it to improve software, then it may not matter too much. Still, I'm sure they have some internal sales goals.
I'm sure they have specific targets to see if it's worth the continued investment into the "next-gen" Steam Deck for sure, but the software aspect will definitely the biggest win in their books.
Since the release of Steam Deck, there's been a substantial interest in gaming on Linux, Big Picture Mode on Steam has now been replaced by the Steam Deck UI, the Steam mobile app has seen insane improvements to be in more in-line with the Steam Deck UI, and there's now increased competition in the handheld PC market.
But Valve never needed Steam Deck to be a success. They could simply maintain Steam and let billions of dollars pour in every year for life lol. The benefit of a company using a flat structure. Some engineer probably thought the Steam Deck was a neat concept and other engineers agreed and decided to work on it lol. I'll be interested to see where Valve takes the concept down the road.
I'm sure they would at least like to turn a profit on whatever they spent on research and development costs.
I think that's more or less fine. It's not really a platform in the way PS5 or Switch is, so it isn't like it will have a major impact on Valve's- overall business unless they did something stupid like overproduce these, which doesn't seem to be the case..
That being said, those who insisted this thing would be a competitor to the Switch or anything like that should feel kind of foolish right about now.
Deinently depends on what you're looking for. I did enjoy the switch when I had it but the deck was more of what I was looking for. Never really been into Nintendo's exclusives which doesn't help. I just enjoyed the idea of being able to play portable and then dock when I get home. Deck gives me that experience but with a larger library that I've already built up over the years. Nintendo's pricing was killing me.
I don't use Steamos because I've read it does have issues with some games and requires some tinkering which I don't want to do. So I installed Windows 10, Gamepass, Steam and use Playnite as my frontend. Works perfect since at that point it's just a normal PC.
Most games run well that I've tried so far. Miles Morales was probably the only one that gave me serious FPS dips in certain sections but it was still very playable. Hogwarts ran great. I would not get it if I was looking to run a lot of the top AAA graphic heavy games. I play a lot of JRPGs though which tend to be light on graphics and other older games as well. Ni No Kuni I recently played and it was great. Yakuza 6 also ran incredibly well. Honestly every time I run a game on the system I'm impressed by how great it all looks.
Oh wow, I knew it was niche but still I thought it was selling more than that. Funny how some people try to compare it favorably to Switch yet it is selling less than 2 million a year...
Massive congrats to steam for selling an exceptional machine!
3M units is probably better than any handheld PC device has ever reached before. Very successful and awesome to see. Kinda wish I had one, but I think I'll wait until V2!
This also puts into context how Sony isn't looking at the steam deck, however. The PS Vita was considered a failure out the gate, but shipped about 4M in it's first year on the market.
The Steam Deck doesn't need to sell as many units as a dedicated portable console does to be successful because software just comes from Steam. This is probably why Sony is making a remote play portable that integrates with a large catalog of software (i.e. PS5 software) instead of making a device with its own dedicated software. Too hard to shrink a PS5 down to a portable product, and too risky to make it its own device with separate games.
I’d say the reason for the extremely low sales despite having a powerful brand and library has little to nothing to do with it not being able to compete with the Switch. The Switch is tailor made and marketed as a console gaming device. The Steam Deck is marketed as a portable computer.
The low sales has a lot more with it not being able to compete with mobile devices. iOS and Android have a tight stranglehold on the market real-estate for a computer on a tier below notebooks. Mobile devices have more suitable OSs and hardware, more useful software, and substantially more expansive libraries of said software—including games that are tailored toward on the go usage.
While Steam Deck is a novel idea, it’s going to remain niche. The window of opportunity for this sort of device in the mainstream ended about 15 years ago. Additionally, it’s now not that much cheaper than higher tier devices including devices (for example) including notoriously expensive companies like Apple which have the M1 MacBook Air. The now 2.5 year old M1 device is not only substantially more powerful, but more useful, about the same weight, doesn’t have the reported heat issues of the Steam Deck, and about has 10 times the battery life.
Interesting. It makes sense 2023 has the potential to sell more than 2022 because of better supply. At the same time everyone that wanted the Steam Deck most likely already has one. I can't imagine the demand to increase from here unless they make a revision. Not in retails, no longer momentum from people talking about it, no exclusives. Plus unlike consoles, this is supposedly a pc, so third party games are less likely to optimize meaning it wouldn't have the 5+ lifespan consoles have. We've seen so many poorly optimized games on PC lately. Steam Deck would most likely suffer from "next gen games", but does that mean we are going to have to buy upgrades every year or two?
It is a niche product after all, I haven't heard news that Steam Decks are selling out or out of stock ever since. I'm not saying Steam Deck won't sell any, but it's hard to imagine an "increase in demand" with this model.
Also do people really think Steam Deck would sell in Asia? Not talking about a couple of thousands. Anything has possibilities I won't deny that, but we need to understand it's more expensive there, Korea are mainly mouse&key players, guarantee it won't sell well in Japan just look at Xbox, China/India/Southeast has close to no chance. I'm just giving a logical/realistic opinion.
2023 will be its first full year with proper stock, that's how it'll sell more this year than 2022 if it does so. PC gaming has grown in Japan significantly the past few years so taking that and their preference for handheld gaming into account I think it has a shot of selling decently there considering expectations.
Fair enough, tho the main reason for PC growth are fps/shooting games in Japan. Steam Deck is not exactly a great hardware for shooters especially with lack of auto aim necessary for controllers. Like u said and in my 1st comment, I think it does have potential to outsell last years, but not sure years ahead.
The problem for japan itself is that they are very adverse to bulky , industrial things in general. one of the reasons the xbox series is doing ok ish is becasue the series S is small and stylish while the ps5 is this bulky monolyth.
when the deck seems big for even a lot of western users its definetly so for the japanese.
Cool !
I'm not hating on the Steam Deck here, but rather the community as it's the perfect example of "double standards". It was odd whenever I saw people saying success with 1 million, but huge flop with something like the Steam Machine selling a little less than 500,000. Or recently PSVR2 was already considered a flop with it's low start. I especially saw this on Twitter, Youtube, and media outlets.
"Steam Deck is niche tho!" As if VRs and whatever Steam Machine isn't.
"Valve doesn't need it to sell lots!" This isn't even about Valve or the companies. But the product. Plus Steam Machine was made by Valve too...
It's a good device, but overhyped for sure. Kinda reminds me of Indie games fans, it really is similar.
Essay Pro