Image caption,

BBC's Marc Cieslak with the Steam Deck

Valve's new handheld PC, the Steam Deck, has officially been released - but only to a select few people.

The hardware was originally slated for release in December 2021, but was pushed back due to supply chain issues.

Despite the hardware having been released, many orders are only available "after Q2 2022".

When asked if it would be able to fulfil these pre-orders, Valve president Gabe Newell pointed to unexpected high demand.

"The shortages are not due to supply shock, they're due to a demand shock," he said.

"It's just this huge uptake in silicon consumption that caught everybody more or less flat-footed."

On Friday, Valve started contacting people who pre-ordered Steam Decks on a first-come, first-served basis.

Customers have three days from receipt of the email from Valve to complete their purchase or lose their spot in the queue.

It is unclear when customers will receive their hardware, but Valve said it will begin shipping on 28 February.

The base version of the Steam Deck costs £349 and comes with 64GB flash storage, while the top-end version costs £569 and has 512GB of faster internal storage.