Steam Deck & handheld PC sales estimated at 6M
How many Steam Decks has Valve sold so far? The company isn’t saying, except that it’s “multiple millions.” We know the Steam Deck is a smash hit, but new research estimates give us a better picture of the new handheld PC market, combined with competing devices like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go.
The Verge commissioned IDC research into handheld PC sales for 2022 to 2024, and estimates for sales this year. According to the projections, the combined sales of the Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go, Asus ROG Ally (multiple models), and MSI Claw (ditto) were approximately 6 million so far, and projected at a hair under 2 million for 2025. That doesn’t include other handheld PCs from smaller vendors like AyaNeo.
Editor’s Note: IDC is owned by the same company as PCWorld and Foundry, International Data Group. The writer of this article did not contact IDC.
It’s safe to assume that the vast majority of those sales are for the Steam Deck, given Valve’s “multiple millions” estimate in November of 2023. But since Asus, Lenovo, Acer, and others are still designing new handheld gaming PCs even after the release of their initial machines, it also seems that the sector is healthy enough for competition, too.
Notably, Lenovo has partnered with Valve to offer a version of the new Legion Go S with SteamOS pre-installed, alleviating many of the headaches with Windows 11 on this low-powered, small-screen form factor. The Windows version of the Legion Go S failed to impress earlier this year, but the SteamOS version will be the first time Valve-powered hardware gets access to retail stores like Best Buy.
Lenovo/Valve
Assuming 5 million or so Steam Decks out there, it would easily be the single most popular gaming PC on the market, even if it’s vastly outnumbered by laptops and desktops from other brands. For comparison, Lenovo sells about 60 million PCs a year across all its product lines, most of which are not “gaming” PCs (even if they can handle 3D games).
But let’s also put this in perspective for mobile gaming beyond the PC market. Nintendo has sold a staggering 150 million Switch units across its seven-year life cycle. That means its sales are crushing those of Steam Deck even as they slow in anticipation of the Switch 2. So the Steam Deck and its competitors are still just a fraction of the larger gaming market, even if they’re growing in popularity for PC gamers. I’ve already said that comparing the Switch and the Steam Deck is kind of dumb.
The more interesting question for me is, what will Microsoft do in response to steady sales of PC handhelds? The Xbox brand is taking a beating on the console side, even as PC gaming remains healthy and the Game Pass subscription service seems to be thriving. In an ideal world, Microsoft would have an Xbox-branded handheld PC on the market right now, competing head-to-head with the Steam Deck as an integrated platform. Microsoft’s handling of things in this area has been…well, less than ideal.
