The steam hardware feed just published news about the reservation queue:
We launched Steam Frame last month, and with the reservation queues and waitlist in place we wanted to give folks a better idea of when they can expect to see an email with the option to purchase.
…
If you have a reservation You can now check on your expected order window by going directly to the Steam Frame product page while logged in to your Steam account. Once there, you’ll see confirmation that you’ll receive your order email either by December, or in 2027. Those in the 2027 camp will receive further (more detailed) information on their expected order timing by January.
I don’t know if they’re rolling it out differently in different regions, but I cannot see it right now and I am in the reservation queue for Europe/Germany.
😐
Edit: Now it’s telling me that I’m in the 2027 group. Oh well.
I still have the same “We will email you if a unit becomes available” :( 2029 I guess
I genuinely don’t understand the distinction between the reservation queue and wait list. I was led to believe that the reservation queue meant “there’s a specific physical device reserved in your name that will be made available for you to purchase shortly”. It seems instead to have meant “you’ll be able to buy one when we have one available and it’s your turn”, which seems indistinguishable from being on the waiting list?
My understanding is that the reservation queue is a mix of “we have a specific physical unit assigned to your name” and “we have a manufacturing order placed, of which one of the units is assigned to you”. Whereas waitlist is more “we haven’t even placed the order yet to manufacture your unit, so we can’t guarantee it will even get made”.
So the distinction is more about the likelihood of ever getting one.
I see. Thanks for your reply and for sharing your understanding! If that’s the case, I believe that Valve could have done a much better job messaging and managing expectations. As things stand, it seems reasonable that people in the reservation queue would have expected to be able to purchase a unit in the near-term (not 4-6 months (or more?) in the future). What an unnecessary buzzkill. :-/
I completely agree with you. I think the intention behind their system was good, and is better than the alternatives they’ve used for the Steam Deck and Controller, but they really need to clarify and/or relabel both lists.
That being said, my comment was based on what I remember reading during the Steam Machine’s release and I assume it applies to the Frame as well. But I don’t remember at all if it was from an official source or simply what people were theorizing in various threads at the time.
Understood. Thanks for the clarification!
its a pre order. That’s it.
Thanks! I see. I expected otherwise based on how things were worded (and it seems I’m not the only one who understood things in this way), which makes me think that Valve could have done a better job messaging this originally. I’m wondering how many people bought VR games during the recent sale expecting to be able to play them on a frame in the immediate future?
Yeah, it was like that with the deck and the steam machine as well, I don’t like waitlists or anything like that. I just want a “Buy Now” button haha
I think you’re right, but this doesn’t seem to be what was initially communicated. Oh well… :-/
I interpret the queue as having an actual ranking to it, whereas the waitlist does not. So if you’re in the queue, you have some unknown position in the order. If you’re in the waitlist, it’s just an unordered list where you have a random chance of being periodically added to the end of the queue.
As an anti-scalping measure it has some value since people who got in early would have a large advantage otherwise, but perhaps the queue itself is a bit too long and should have been restricted to something close to “definitely coming this year”.
The FAQ says the waitlist is ordered, only the initial sign-up period was unordered.
What if I don’t sign up before September 17th at 10 a.m. Pacific? After the one-time randomization at that time, anyone who signs up will be automatically added to the back of the waitlist.
I received an email that I’m on the waitlist, what does that mean? It means that when we did the one-time randomization of the reservation queue, your place in line ended up beyond the number of Steam Frame units available to reserve. As we work our way through the queue, some customers may cancel their reservations. If that happens, you may be moved up in the reservation queue, and you’ll be notified via email that you have a reservation after all. But if not, nothing about your position in the waitlist changes, and any future production runs of Steam Frames will be offered to customers in the order they’re on the waitlist.
Thanks! That’s possible as well, though I thought I recently saw a reference to waitlist position? In any event, I agree that the system has value for anti-scalping, and that there is some implied timing to “we have one for you to purchase” that shouldn’t involve waiting multiple years.
It’s literally on the faq of the steam frame page. Shame people don’t know how to read anymore.
My point was that there seems to be no functional difference? See my comment down thread if that doesn’t clarify why your comment isn’t meaningful
I’m not going to do the research for you just because you lack basic comprehension skills. The difference is right there in the faq. I even went out of my way to post the screenshots of each item you inquired about.
There’s nothing to research. Though I genuinely appreciate the effort you went to, i’m afraid you’ve missed the point repetedly, which is ironic given your rude accusations. Not sure if you’re trolling or blindly repeating things that have been said to you, but you’re definitely not adding anything of value right now.
I think it’s the planned production run, not already produced units that’ll all go to the reservation queue.
So if you’re in the queue, you’re guaranteed to get one. The wait-list will… have to wait.
Thanks! My assumption has been that Valve would not stop making frames while there’s a line of people trying to buy one, so eventually everyone on the waitlist would be offered to buy one after some unknown (potentially long) wait time. Might they stop making them before then?
Ideally that would be the case, but the last few years were a disaster for the consumer electronics market due to all the RAM and GPUs in the world being sold to AI hyperscalers. So if there’s just physically no components to make these things from, then that’s that.
Thanks for this perspective. I knew RAM was scarce, but it never occurred to me that things were so bad that in-demand electronics might simply stop being made as a result.
Read again. The distinction is very clearly stated.
Reservation queue : There is a product for you in the current batch, just wait for it to be available before purchasing it.
Waitlist : There wasn’t enough products in this batch to put you in the queue, but if someone in the queue decide not to buy, his product will be assigned to someone else, and a spot will be freed in the reservation queue, allowing someone (probably randomly chosen in the waitlist) to join the queue.
I agree: there’s a distinction without a difference. If they have the product now, why can’t it be purchased until next year? If you have to wait to purchase (and assuming valve will keep making frames as long as there’s a literal line of people eager to buy them), it’s functionally the same as the waiting list: wait until there’s stock ready to ship and it’s your turn, then you can purchase. I’m not sure what difference in practice you’re seeing?
They DON’T have the product, but they do have secured the parts and manufacture, so it gets slowly built, after which small batches are dispached around the world, before getting assigned to someone in the queue to be bought (if he still wish to).
For the waitlist, they don’t have secured enough parts to buy a chunk of manufacturing time to assemble them. From the look of it they decided to buy additional manufacturing time chunks in 2028, but don’t know yet when they will be, so wait & see.
Thanks! I feel that ought to have been better communicated, since naturally there’s some implied timing. For example, if I said I had a car available for you to buy, how long do I have to be able to provide the car before my claim it’s available seems false? 1 year? Longer?
Sad to be in 2027 group, but at least I won’t get my hopes up every time I see the new email notification.
Me too, I just hope the price won’t go up before I can place my order.
Mine doesn’t have a year specified.
I believe this is specifically for the reservation queue (not the waiting list). Sorry it’s not better news…
It’s not showing anything for me either, also Germany.
Edit: Oh wait, this is for the Reservation Queue, not the waitlist. Wtf. Their stock must be ridiculously low. I somehow thought that reservation queue meant getting it within the first few weeks.
I somehow thought that reservation queue meant getting it within the first few weeks.
Same here! It seems to me the wording for the reservation queue description naturally gave this impression. I think Valve could have done a much better job with messaging…
I’m in Germany I it is showing for me directly under the “Reservierung stornieren” Button:
Für Sie voraussichtlich bestellbar: Zwischen jetzt und 30.Dezember.2026
I’ll have to wait until '27. Good thing I bought the color camera early! That’s already sitting on my desk…
I’m in the 2027 gang, damn. Oh well, on the bright side I basically have an extra 1k disposable now.
What I don’t understand is why Valve didn’t share this information from the beginning. Their communication led to believe that everyone who landed into the reservation queue would receive theirs within weeks, or within 1-2 months at most. Making us first wait almost a month only to be like, ‘btw, you’re not getting yours until next year’ is a really shitty way to treat your customers.
That was also my understanding. Having people wait for months on the reservation queue makes it meaningless vs the waiting list. How little stock did they actually have I wonder.
Why even bother with the whole waitlist/reservation thing in the first place?
My order availability is 2027, which makes having a “reservation” fucking meaningless.
Why even bother with the whole waitlist/reservation thing in the first place?
Disincentivize scalpers.
How does that work? They already enforce one unit per household.
Shuffling the order queue means that even ordering one with a scripted bot is senseless because it’s not first come, first serve.
Not happy myself that I’m in the 2027 group but maybe some hero ports SteamOS to the Quest 3, then I could cancel my order and save money. I genuinely want one mainly as an unencumbered VLC player with a giant virtual screen.
And yet there are still scalpers. All it did was stop legit buyers from having a chance.
I have been against this stupid ass lottery since day 1.
I was able to get every single valve hardware on day 1 prior to the lottery. This is first time I didn’t get valve hardware at launch.
What would recommend when demand is higher than supply? In this scenario usually some group needs to wait.
I have been able to add to cart for every steam hardware right at launch. There is nothing that needs to be done except for removing the unnecessary lottery.
If people are too slow and can’t handle it, then that’s their problem not mine. The lottery was what held me back from buying a steam frame, not a scalper.
I also think Valve should have given accounts that already had purchased hardware in the past a priority. Like you have 1000 games and all their hardware versus some account with no games and no hardware purchases.
I was put on the waitlist and until today I still had a little bit of hope I’d be able to purchase one this year. Haha, nope. I’ll just resign myself to probably never getting one at this point.
I’d gotten the email to order one, but I was out of the country…
Steam support said they couldn’t delay shipment or give me 2 extra days to order so I’d be back when it was delivered…
So I got kicked all the way to the end of the waitlist Kinda killed my excitement, now
The couriers in your country won’t hold on to an item for 2 days if you’re not in? That sucks.
People went from being on waitlist to being on reservation for Steam Machine recently, and people got Steam Controllers earlier than estimated time. Steam might be choosing to be more conservative on their estimates so still hope.
Or people with the ability to buy chose not to
At this rate there’s a realistic chance to get a used one at a reasonable price before getting a new one from the waitlist. As much as I like Valve I have to say they really dropped the ball on this one. Why even bother creating a market-changing device when you only produce it in minuscule numbers. Now they have neither an egg nor a hen.
“Waitlist” feels redundant with these timelines. I wonder what their plan was, really: “Let’s create this game-changing headset, but only manufacture and sell a couple thousand of it. Yeah, that’ll change the whole market for VR!”
I’m sure they completely decided on this course and this isn’t because of the massive data-center driven hardware shortage.
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Valve definitely dropped the ball on communication, but there is a real distinction between the lists.
The reservation list likely ties to guaranteed inventory. This would cover everything from warehouse stock to parts awaiting manufacturing and/or assembly, RAM being the probable bottleneck. As long as a full bill of materials is confirmed and finalized, Valve would consider those allocatable units.
The waitlist would then be all demand beyond that, and since Valve might not have RAM or storage obtained for them, those people might see a price increase.
I’d argue it’s more than just dropping the ball.
I received an email to say I have a Frame reserved. To me that means that I will soon be given the option to buy one, not some time next year.
They should’ve only reserve listed as many customers as they have actual inventory for, anything else is misleading. I’ve even seen people commenting that they’ve been moved from the wait list to the reserve list when it’s obvious Valve don’t have the inventory to meet demand.
Well, I think the reserve list is still actual inventory and that the wait list moving is still inventory getting allocated. If you ordered a cake from me and I had all the needed ingredients in the back, I wouldn’t think twice about saying, “Okay, we have a cake reserved for you.” That’s just how I’ve always thought the word worked.
That said, I do have the 'tism, and I don’t have prior experience with making product reservations shaping my expectations.
I get it but with your analogy, if you had all the ingredients and told me you’d get back to me at the start of next year with further information about when I might be able to expect my reserved cake, I’d be pretty unhappy.
Yeah, Valve should really have more information to give. Still, to keep the analogy consistent, any baked-in (hah) time expectations are going to scale with actual production times and hard deadlines. Cakes can be produced in the range of hours or days and are typically ordered ahead of dated events. A device like the Frame is 3 months minimum from part procurement to delivery and is a luxury good no one should expect to need.
“Between now and Jan 31, 2027” for me. Still a pretty broad window. I’m going to assume the latter date is what’s expected if nobody in front of me cancels, so I probably won’t be getting it this year.
Hmmm I might just join the waitlist now, then. Because I wanted to give myself a few months to think it over, anyway.
This news seems to suggest that the wait list might take a very long time (many months, possibly more than a year) to service?
Your estimated order availability: Between now and December 30, 2026
Christmas present, yay?
Damn, I’m in the 2027 group. At least most of bugs will be worked out by then hopefully.
Now I can see that I’m in the 2027 group as well.
🤜🤛
So reservations have to wait until 2027? Damn. I’m still on the wait list. I’ll probably not get a chance to get one before 2027H2.
Waitlist here too.
I’m gutted, really.
Logically I know that a lottery was the right system, and I can’t blame valve for the RAMpocalypse.
Emotionally, It feels like such a gut punch when I’ve been following this headset with great anticipation since day one, and I absolutely will never use a Meta headset even if it was free, because I care about privacy.
Looks like no VR for me until 2028.
Where is it supposed to say if you’re getting an email before 2027? I don’t see anything about an estimate anywhere
\2027. welp. I will be on another continent for most of that year. I guess I’ll wait for 2028 when I’m back.
If you’re lucky, there will be an OLED version until then.
Welp. I guess “this year” is better than 2027. Thank you for the heads up.
And thank you for linking to the source and not some third party republishing the information with 1000 words of unnecessary context and ads.
