Less than a month since it started, Valve Steam Machine pre-orders have reportedly sold out. Orders made from now on will ship on the gaming hardware's November 10 release date. But how many units did Valve actually sell?
"The publisher and game distributor has sold out of the 'get it early' Steam Machines offer that would put the game-optimized PCs into your hands a month early," VentureBeat wrote.
As the website noted, orders made from now on will ship in November 10 instead of the earlier October 16 delivery date for pre-orders.
Valve Steam Machines run the company's Linux-based SteamOS, an optimized version of its Steam client, designed to take PC gaming to the living room. Valve partnered with third-party vendors such as Alienware and Falcon Northwest to create the hardware ranging in price from $450 to $1,500.
Despite what looks like Valve's triumph in breaking into the $55 billion console industry, one question remains: How many Steam Machines did the "Half-Life" developer actually manage to sell?
"We don't know, so this is a bit of a PR stunt on Valve's part. For all we know, the October allotment of Steam Machines was a hundred units. Or it was a billion units. It's good news for Valve/Linux fans either way, but how good? That's impossible to tell," PC World said.
The website also speculated that Valve's Steam Controller is the reason for the limited supply as it's "the current manufacturing bottleneck of this whole process."
Ars Technica wondered if "it's low supply, healthy demand, or some combination [of the two] that led to the 'early bird' sell out just a few weeks after its announcement."
"We also have no idea what kind of supplies Valve has planned for the wider availability in November."
As of now, manufacturers such as Syber now say pre-orders will ship on or before the Valve Steam Machine release date in November 10.
