Despite dominating the PC handheld market, the Steam Deck has actually sold quite poorly over its three-year life span on the market. Valve has never shared any exact sales figures for the device, but now, reports show that the Steam Deck has only been able to move 3.7 million units in the three years.
According to IDC, the PC handheld market is currently sitting at around 6 million units in the hands of gamers worldwide. This includes all models and SKUs, including the ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion GO, MSI Claw, and Steam Deck. Of which, the bulk of those sales have been attributed to the Steam Deck.
IDC says the PC handheld market has also stagnated with very little growth seen across the adoption rate over the past two years. The firm also claims we won’t see the industry grow in any substantial way in the future.
This is likely why Intel and AMD haven’t put as much effort into mobile processors as we expected. All of the current PC handhelds are powered by either Intel or AMD, and so far, we have seen the technology remain “okay”. AMD dominates the market with the Zen Extreme processor and FSR, while Intel has struggled to gain traction with its SoC and XeSS upscaling.
There are a few reasons why these stats could be this low. Firstly, PC gamers would prefer to play on their PC with all the horsepower of their gaming rig instead of being dumbed down by these mobile chips. Back when I reviewed the original ASUS ROG Ally, I expressed how pointless the device was to me. Mainly due to the limited performance in comparison to my PC, which I put a lot of love and attention into.
The Steam Deck has also struggled to keep up with modern games, especially over the past year, where new releases are more demanding than ever. Valve has stated that the company will wait for a “leap” in technology before releasing a new model. The company also says it won’t use the AMD Zen 2 chip, which was announced earlier this year.
Nintendo has also whitewashed the handheld market with 150 million Nintendo Switch consoles sold since its launch back in 2017. The hardware still remains an exclusive experience, offering games and features that no other PC handheld has.
We know that Sony and Microsoft are both working on handhelds to some degree. However, unlike the PC handheld market, these are expected to offer unique experiences to gamers, which won’t simply be Windows slapped onto a small screen in the palm of your hands. We don’t know if there’s room for more handhelds given the looming launch of the Switch 2 later this year.
Source: IDC
