Get Your Calendars Ready for This Limited Edition White Steam Deck
Good things come to those who act quickly. Yes, apparently something as simple as simply repainting the device may now be a limited edition release, and anyone who’s been praying to Gabe for a white Steam Deck better get ready for next week.
Valve today announced that it will begin selling Steam Deck OLED: Limited Edition White on November 18th at 3:00 pm PT/6:00 pm ET. The design is reminiscent of the Portal -style prototype the company showed off in a livestream three years ago , except for the Aperture Science logo on the back of the device. Instead, it has a matte white body, white touchpads and gray buttons, but otherwise “has all the same specs as the Steam Deck OLED 1TB model.”
While my hopes for an official Portal device seem to have now been thrown into the incinerator as well as the companion cube, the official white Steam Deck still looks quite attractive and it probably won’t take modders too long to prepare Aperture decals for it Science.
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The special Steam Deck will cost $649, which is essentially a $30 surcharge for the white color, and will be available “in all Steam Deck shipping regions,” including regions served by Komodo (Valve’s shipping partner for various parts of East Asia). The package includes a special white carrying case and, less interestingly, a white microfiber cleaning cloth.
Valve hasn’t specified how many units will be available, although the company says inventory will be “proportionally distributed across each region.” Purchases will also be limited to one unit per account, and to be eligible for purchase, accounts will be required to make at least one purchase on Steam before November 2024 (presumably to reduce the number of bots).
Unfortunately, once the white Steam Deck is gone, it will be gone as Valve “will no longer be making this particular design.” However, this wording gives the impression that there may be other limited editions in the future. Previously, the company released a smoky translucent variation of the device.
Valve recently confirmed in an interview with Australian site Reviews.org that it has no plans to release a successor to Steam Deck until it sees a “generational leap in computing”, so anyone waiting for Steam Deck 2 can also rest easy knowing that that their new white OLED Steam Deck likely won’t go out of date anytime soon. While rival devices like the Asus ROG Ally X offer slightly better performance and some other tweaks, Valve’s SteamOS operating system and aggressive pricing mean the Steam Deck still has a strong presence in the portable PC market.