Here’s How to Preorder a Steam Deck in Australia, if You’re Game

Here’s How to Preorder a Steam Deck in Australia, if You’re Game
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Valve’s Steam Deck set the internet on fire when it was announced in July — but you could only hear a low moan from disappointed Australians. But if you want to roll the dice with Valve’s handheld console and international shipping, here’s how you can go about preordering a Steam Deck in Australia.

Remember, the Steam Deck isn’t technically available in Australia. When you go to the reservations page, you’ll find a lovely message stating the console isn’t available in your region and you won’t be able to place a preorder. But if you’re using a VPN, you should be able to remove those nasty barriers.

Steam Deck release date

After delays (mostly due to that whole global chip shortage thing) the Steam Deck officially released last month for a few markets (the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany and France), with initial preorder models being sent to early purchasers. The next drop of orders is expected soon.

Valve has outlined some rough estimates as to when you can expect the Steam Deck in other markets, but it’s basically “after Q2 2022”. Sorry Australia, we don’t have an exact region release date for the Steam Deck just yet.

But…..Here’s how to preorder the Steam Deck from Australia if you’re really keen to get your hands on a device (when it finally arrives in the U.S.).

How to preorder the Steam Deck if you live in Australia

The first thing you’ll need to place a Steam Deck preorder within Australia is a VPN. While the preorder page does show up without one, you won’t be able to place an order locally until the Steam page recognises you’re in an eligible location.

According to testing by Streaming Rant and How To Watch, the best VPN services for accessing overseas content in Australia are: NordVPN, Surfshark, PureVPN and ExpressVPNThey each costs between $4 and $12 a month (or less for a yearly subscription) and you’ll be able to use them to access other services as well, including the hearty library of American Netflix.

If you’ve never used a VPN before, it’ll basically ‘trick’ websites into believing your device is located anywhere in the world you choose.

Select an American VPN location, and the Steam Deck preorder page should unlock for you. You might also have to update the home country of your Steam account to the United States, like Aussies had to do when they wanted to get the Valve Index early. (Steam has a FAQ on how to change your home country here.)

When your update the account, Steam will ask you for an address from your account’s new country — which you’ll get from the next step.

Because the Steam Deck still only ships to the United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom, you can’t ship your console directly to Australia. Instead, you’ll want to send it to a friend in one these locations or use a mail forwarding service like ShopMate or Shipito.

These services allow you to purchase goods and send them to a provided overseas address, where they’ll be shipped directly to you. ShopMate will give you a US-based address, and that’s what you’ll want to put into Steam when updating your home country.

To get your Steam Deck in Australia, you’ll also need a local payment service for the United States, too. The best option is a U.S. prepaid card provider. US Unlocked is one service you can use, but note you’ll have to cop additional fees upon setting up. You may also need a US-based phone number too for registration. OpenPhone is a good option that you can link into your existing devices, as is MightyCall. Both have trial periods you can use, although you will have to pay if you want to keep the phone number active until you get your Steam Deck.

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Major factors to consider when importing the Steam Deck

steam deck games
Image: Steam

There’s a couple of unknowns about the Steam Deck you should familiarise yourself with before you run off to grab one. Namely, you need to consider the power issues you may run into, as well as compatibility issues with your Steam account.

Power adaptors and voltage

The first issue you’ll run into with ordering a Steam Deck from the U.S. is your charger will likely be a a two-pronged North American power cord, rather than a local Aussie one. A converter will be needed for a quick fix — but it’s not as simple as grabbing any old one off eBay.

Australian power outlets are designed to deliver 230 volts of energy, while U.S. outlets deliver just 120 volts. Using a basic converter with your U.S. Steam Deck could overload and overheat your console if used in Australia, an outcome you’ll definitely want to avoid. You’ll have to purchase a voltage converter to be on the safe side, but it will add bulk to your charging set-up.

In better news, the Steam Deck does appear to have an alternative USB-C option for charging — and while we haven’t seen exactly how this’ll work, it should be an easy plug-and-play fit. We’ll have to stay tuned to the console’s release to know more about how the charging will actually work, and whether the U.S. power plug system will actually be a challenge.

Store compatibility

Another thing you’ll need to consider is your imported Steam Deck will likely run on the U.S. version of the Steam store, not the Australia one. So if you want to buy anything from the Steam store, you’ll need a payment method that works in the United States. Steam, however, says you can update your store country multiple times “as long as you use a payment method that matches your Steam country setting” — so you’ll have to follow the steps above if you want to buy games in Aussie dollars.

It pales in comparison to the power issue but it’s something you should still think about.

Waiting until the Steam Deck launches in Australia?

This is definitely a good option that clears everything up we talked about above.

We don’t want to get your hopes up, but it’s important to add a few dollars to the conversion from USD to AUD when considering how much the Steam Deck will set you back. We go into it in a bit more detail over here, but here’s the gist.

Steam Deck estimated cost:

  • The cheapest option is $US399 (converted, that’s around $555), packed with 64GB eMMC internal storage and a carrying case.
  • The mid-range model is $US529 (around the $740 mark, straight conversion), packing 256GB SSD internal storage, a carrying case and a Steam Community profile bundle (for your Steam profile).
  • Finally, the most expensive model is $US649 (converted, the price for the top-tier Steam Deck is $903, so likely tipping $1,000), complete with 512GB NVME storage capacity, anti-glare etched glass, an “exclusive” carrying case, an exclusive steam community profile bundle and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme.

This article has been updated since its original publish date and dw, we’ll continue to make changes when we learn more.


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At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.