A hot potato: In a depressingly familiar sight, listings for the Steam Deck have appeared on eBay with prices over $1,000, despite Valve placing several anti-scalping measures in place when it made the device available for reservation a few days ago.
Following the Steam Deck announcement, Valve allowed consumers to preregister for the handheld by paying a $5 deposit that is applied to the final cost when the devices get closer to their shipping dates.
In addition to the reservation fee, the only people able to pre-order the Steam Deck within the first 48 hours of availability were those who had bought something on Steam before June 2021. The first shipments are scheduled to begin in December 2021, but the huge demand has seen Valve change the availability for new pre-orders
The $399/64GB base version of the Steam Deck will ship in Q1 2022 for new reservations. The $529/256GB model is expected in Q2 2022, and the $649/512GB variant is scheduled for Q3 2022.
With the change in shipping times for new orders, scalpers have been selling reservations for Steam Decks that will ship in December---even though Valve doesn't guarantee they'll be sent out during this month. There are even some eBay listings with vague "2022" dates.
The good news is that eBay told Kotaku the listings are being removed as they violate the website's "Presale Policy," which states all pre-sales items must ship within 30 days. There are only four Steam Decks on the site at the time of writing.