As you may remember, the Steam Deck (and more particularly the OLED version) was constantly out of stock in Japan in the course of 2024. The situation has since changed, with proper stocks available on the archipelago. Except the older LCD version which is now out of stock (permanently?).

This is probably because of two factors:

• Larger inventory available worldwide
• Potentially less local demand

The demand may have decreased in Japan as there are more powerful alternatives available nowadays, such as the ROG Ally X which is its key competitor. Even without alternatives, this kind of devices will end up reaching a plateau in sales after the early adopters secured one for themselves. And there’s the Switch 2 coming along very soon, too. There is also a very lively second hand market that you can find on sites like Mercari and Yahoo Auctions in Japan.

So this means that you can now find the Steam Deck (even the OLED version) in physical stores in Japan across the country, and based on the latest data available at the time of writing, this is what the physical availability looks like, with this interactive map below.

As you can see there is now a good coverage to find the Steam Deck in Japan in large cities: Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sendai, Sapporo, Nagasaki… the only major place missing is Fukuoka (Hakata) for some reason. Funnily enough, there are several places where you can buy the Steam Deck in Okinawa as well. Okinawa is fairly far from mainland Japan, and by no means a center of the domestic video games market. My guess is that there’s distribution there because of the proximity of the American military base of Okinawa. There are enough Americans located in Okinawa at all times to warrant some physical availability.

I was just in Kyoto a few days ago and I could confirm that the Steam Deck was on display in the Edion store of Kawaramachi - just next to alternative PC handhelds like the ROG Ally X. The Steam Deck booth clearly indicated that quantities were limited, and you were only able to purchase one unit per person.

Opposite from the Steam Deck was the booth for the ROG Ally, which took about the same size, with two units in demonstration, and a big screen showcasing a Windows desktop in its full glory.

These are machines you are supposed to play with, but the level of incompetence of the staff is abysmal. The ROG Ally X had no games that you could run - it was basically a useless brick in demonstration. The Steam Deck had at least several games playable, but it was turned off (or in sleep mode) and did not react until you pressed the power button. I doubt that most visitors would know how to operate it if it was their first time.

And all of this epic failure was happening while at least 4 or 5 members staff were on the same floor, doing nothing but greeting bystanders and waiting for customers to grab things on the various shelves. I guess none of them are getting any incentive or bonus from the PC handheld sales they make.

So that’s it. Japan has Steam Decks in store now, including the OLED versions.