Steam Deck Fans Just Got Bad News About An Upcoming Accessory

Valve has been selling the Steam Deck for several months now. At the time of its launch, Valve also announced its intention to bring an accessory called the Steam Deck Docking Station to market. This optional accessory was designed to allow Steam Deck users to easily hook up their systems with external displays and featured a Gigabit Ethernet port for faster networking speeds. The dock was also designed to expand connectivity options for the Steam Deck and was meant to arrive with extra USB ports to ensure support for external peripherals.

Unfortunately, even after three months of waiting since the launch of the Steam Deck, Valve has not been able to deliver this dock into the hands of consumers. While we already knew that the Steam Deck Docking Station was delayed, Valve initially promised a probable "late Spring" 2022 availability window for the product. Valve went so far as to suggest that the delay was in part meant to allow time to upgrade the dock before its official launch.

In a recent development, Valve announced that they are further delaying the launch of the dock. However, unlike last time, the company has not revealed how long consumers will need to wait for the dock to arrive. The announcement about yet another delayed availability for the Steam Deck Docking Station came via a post on Valve's official blog.

It would appear that Valve is suffering from the same supply chain issues troubling most other tech companies dealing with hardware products. The blog post blames part shortages and COVID-19-related closures at the company's manufacturing facilities for the continued delay.

While we know that Valve has contracted Taiwanese manufacturing major Quanta Computer for manufacturing the Steam Deck, there is no official word about the manufacturer or the country from where Valve sources the Steam Deck Docking Station. Looking at recent trends, there is a chance that these products are also manufactured in China, which has been reeling from a surge in COVID-19 cases for the past few months.

In the blog post, Valve adds that the production and availability of the Steam Deck have not been affected by these closures. The company also explicitly said that these two products come from two different factories and use completely different parts. While we still do not have a revised launch date for the Steam Deck Docking Station, the company has assured us that it is "working on improving the situation."

While the primary motive for most users to buy the official Steam Deck Docking Station would be to hook up the Steam Deck to a monitor or an external display, it is not the only method by which users can do that. Valve has already confirmed that users can do the same without the official dock by simply using a good-quality USB-C hub. Besides, the Steam Deck Docking Station does not have any special hardware that offers improved performance when the Steam Deck is connected to it. The company, in fact, confirms this on the Steam Deck FAQ page.

This also means that you can skip buying the official dock altogether and get a good-quality USB-C hub made by a brand other than Valve. The Steam Deck will support any USB-C hub that supports an HDMI out and supports at least 45W of USB-C passthrough.