My Steam Deck has survived three years of me trying to replace it while loading as many odd software packages as I could. I have tested the challengers, tried the alternative operating systems, and the Deck keeps winning. It is no secret that the Steam Deck dominates the PC gaming handheld market. I assumed the sales figures would match my excitement level. I was wrong[reference:53].
Analysts estimate that Valve has sold 4 million Steam Decks since February 2022[reference:54]. That is a big number. But let us bring that back to Earth. One long weekend for the Nintendo Switch 2 nearly equals the lifetime sales of the most successful PC gaming handheld ever made[reference:55].
The real numbers
Valve does not share sales figures, but the best estimate from analyst firm IDC, shared with The Verge in early 2025, was four million sold at that point[reference:56]. That is the lion's share of the PC gaming handheld market, which was roughly 6 million sold in total[reference:57].
In 2022, the market was 1.62 million units, and they were effectively all Steam Decks[reference:58]. Once challengers from Lenovo, MSI, and Asus turned up, Valve's share leveled off to roughly 50% across 2023 and 2024. Three flagships took half the remaining market, and all were more expensive than Valve's offering[reference:59]. The only nod to these numbers from Valve came late in 2023, when it told reporters it sold "multiple millions." That is as close to a published sales figure as we will ever get[reference:60].
A niche market
If we take every PC gaming handheld sold since 2022, the category remains a niche. 6 million units sold across mainstream and boutique brands is a failure when compared to any other handheld console. Even the N-Gage sold 3 million on its own, and it looked like a pastry[reference:61].
2023 was the best year so far for PC gaming handhelds, possibly due to the Steam Deck OLED launch, but sales dropped sharply the next year[reference:62]. Maybe we are at 8 million units across the segment by now, perhaps edging toward 9[reference:63].
The Nintendo Switch 2 sold 23.68 million units in 13 months, and even a slow quarter still totaled 3.82 million[reference:64]. The original Switch sold 660K units in that same slow quarter, and it is nine years old[reference:65]. The numbers for almost every other handheld console are similarly impressive. Valve is not competing with Nintendo, but then again nobody is[reference:66].
Why it still matters
SteamOS is roughly 0.9% of all Steam users[reference:67]. The PC gaming handheld market is roughly 8 million units over four years. My napkin math puts that at roughly $1 billion in hardware sales per year, in an industry that is enormous[reference:68]. These are not the type of sales figures that convince executives to make gaming handhelds.
But it is a niche that has rippled through the industry. Microsoft adapted, then put the Xbox brand on Asus hardware[reference:69]. Valve is pushing SteamOS beyond the Deck, with the Steam Machine and upcoming Steam Frame[reference:70]. Linux's share of Steam has doubled in two years, and the Deck is the driver of that[reference:71]. Every Linux distro can now play Windows games, thanks to the Proton layer that Valve bankrolled[reference:72].
Microsoft had to adapt because Lenovo decided to build a SteamOS version of its handhelds[reference:73]. The successor to the Steam Deck is still some ways off, because Valve has said it needs to see a generational leap in hardware capability first[reference:74].
It is perhaps unfair to compare the Steam Deck to the Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo is its own industry segment. But the parallel to Valve is not unwarranted, because neither has a viable competitor. The Steam Deck won by being first, cheaper, and less annoying to use[reference:75]. The PC handheld gaming market might be small now, but so was the handheld console market at one point[reference:76].