If you’ve been eyeing a Steam Deck and twiddling your thumbs, wondering when it will officially come out in Australia, well, wait no longer.
At PAX this weekend, Valve announced that Aussies will finally be able to purchase an official Steam Deck in Australia sometime this November.
This isn’t the first time Steam Decks have popped up in the Oceania region, either. Some retailers would notoriously sell ‘grey imports‘ from third-party suppliers not affiliated with Valve. These consoles would have varying degrees of buyer protection, so in some ways, you’d be taking a risk purchasing one.
With the release of first-party Steam Decks in Australia, you’ll now be able to grab units with secure buyer protection and warranties, which is great, especially if you plan on travelling with one.
Here’s everything you need to know about picking one up in Australia.
What is a Steam Deck?
The Steam Deck is Valve’s new portable gaming console. It was originally announced in 2022 and came out very shortly after.
With the console, you get to take your Steam library on the go with you. Say you’re having a long flight but want to grind out some Red Dead Redemption 2? You can, and you don’t need to lug around your bulky gaming laptop to do so.
The portable console has various models, including 64 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB models. This means you’ll be able to load up three or so games onto it ready-to-go when you need them. However, you can switch out the storage if you’d like to use an external SSD.
If you want your games to look even better, you can choose to grab a Steam Deck with an OLED display instead, which comes with either 512 GB or 1TB hard drive storage space.
What’s also important to highlight here is the console’s performance. Anyone who’s played a recent release like Hogwarts Legacy on the Switch can immediately tell that frames drop and areas of the game are totally different to account for hardware limitations.
The Steam Deck doesn’t suffer this same issue and can run games like Horizon: Zero Dawn at 60 frames-per-second at 1080p. So, while the Nintendo Switch has plenty of dedicated titles, the Steam Deck outclasses it in terms of hardware capabilities.
Where can you buy one in Australia?
The Steam Deck will officially release in Australia in November. Pre-orders aren’t available now, but you can wishlist it on Steam to follow updates for pre-orders and release dates. Australian prices for the Steam Deck are below:
- 256GB LCD: $649 AUD
- 512GB OLED: $899 AUD
- 1TB OLED: $1,049 AUD
A Valve spokesperson has confirmed with GamesHub that the Steam Deck will only be available to purchase through the Steam Store Page and will not be available at other retailers.
Best of luck to everyone who tries to grab one up at launch. May your commutes significantly improve with one.
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