If you were quick on the draw with your Steam Deck reservation and have been a bit concerned that you haven’t heard anything from Valve even with release day looming, you can breathe a sigh of relief. In a news post on Steam today, Valve revealed that it won’t start sending out emails to those who pre-ordered a Steam Deck until 10 AM PST/1 PM EST on Friday, February 25.
Valve will start sending out emails to those who reserved a Steam Deck in the order the reservations were received. Once you get your email, you’ll then have 72 hours to buy the Steam Deck you reserved (and remember, you won’t be able to switch to a different model). You’ll also have the option to cancel your order, though you can also just ignore the email and have your reservation auto-canceled after 72 hours.
Canceled reservations go to the next in line, so even if the Steam Deck page on the Steam Store is showing that your machine won’t be ready until sometime later in Q1 2022, it might be worth keeping an eye on your inbox just in case someone ahead of you cancels and you get to buy earlier than anticipated. Valve also says that full Steam Deck reviews will be going live on Friday, so we’ll keep an eye out for those.