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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.