There are a huge number of PC handheld gaming devices on the market now. From recognizable brands like MSI, ASUS ROG, and Lenovo to smaller companies like Ayaneo and Ayn, almost everyone seems to have a handheld on the market. Despite this, the Steam Deck remains king of them all.

It has been three years since Valve launched the Steam Deck and triggered a transformation in the handheld PC gaming space. The success of the Steam Deck was quickly followed by rivals attempting to get a slice of the pie, resulting in the launch of the ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, the Ayaneo Flip, and many others.

Steam Deck sales are well ahead of the competition

Despite attempts by various brands to muscle in, data gathered by The Verge shows that the Steam Deck remains king of the handheld gaming market. The Verge worked with market research company IDC to track various supply chains around the world to get a complete picture of how well each handheld is performing in sales.

Just under six million handheld gaming devices have shipped in three years (2022-2024). Though this doesn't initially seem like a large number, it is worth remembering that the PC handheld market is a relatively new segment, and those six million devices are mostly going to early adopters.

“All of the 2022 shipments are the Steam Deck, and Ward tells me upwards of 50 percent of the 2023 shipments and 48 percent of the 2024 shipments are the Deck as well. Doing the math, Valve has now shipped upwards of 3.7 million Steam Decks and has quite possibly crossed 4 million by now.”

The Verge

The figures show that the vast majority of those six million shipments have been for the Steam Deck itself. Over 3.7 million Steam Decks have been shipped over the past few years with as few as two million of its Windows-based rival devices shipped.

AMD gaming marketing boss Frank Azor was enthusiastic when he spoke to The Verge, saying: “I think it's amazing. This didn't exist three years ago; we went from nothing, zero, to incremental category creation in the millions of units.” Of course, AMD is doing extremely well out of the handheld market, as it provides the majority of the APUs that power them.

So if the internal hardware is mostly the same, what does Steam Deck have that other devices do not? The answer is probably very simple – Windows.

Windows is at best a bit clunky on handheld devices, at worst it actively harms the playing experience. The problem is such that mod teams are working on ways to make Windows more functional on devices such as the Asus ROG Ally and MSI Claw, or even providing SteamOS-based alternatives such as Bazzite and SteamFork.

Unless other manufacturers can make the user experience as frictionless as SteamOS, it seems Valve is likely to continue winning the handheld war. On that note, ASUS has already confirmed its intention to stick to Windows, but SteamOS is finally coming to third-party devices such as a special variant on the Legion Go S coming this May.

About the Author

Rebecca Hills-Duty

Writing and journalism experience at VRFocus, UploadVR, The Escapist, HTC, PC Gamer, Tech Radar+ and Dexerto. Can sometimes be found playing with retro tech.