How to (pre)order a Steam Deck from Switzerland

Philipp Rüegg

27.5.2022

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Unfortunately, Steam Deck isn’t (yet) available here. Fortunately, those of you who can’t wait for Valve’s handheld PC to grace Switzerland can still pre-order one.

Steam Deck is in high demand. Valve, the company behind retail platform Steam, has made an impact with its Nintendo Switch for PC gamers. Annoyingly, the handheld is hard to get and not yet officially available in Switzerland. There’s little you can do about the poor delivery times, but you can still order the device using a little trick.

Anyone who currently visits the Steam Deck page with a Swiss Steam account will be greeted by an unpleasant, «This item isn’t available in your country». Currently, Steam Deck is only available in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU. Unacceptable.

At your own risk

Even though I consider the risk to be extremely low, it should be said that Valve could punish violations of their T&Cs with an account suspension. This contrasts with the Swiss ban on geoblocking. As Consumer Protection laws state: «There is still no obligation to deliver to Switzerland, but an online store abroad must also deliver goods to a Swiss customer at an address in the respective country.»

Requirements

You’ll need three things to change your region on Steam and reserve the Deck:

• A non-Swiss credit card, e.g. Revolut.
• A VPN.
• A pick-up location outside Switzerland.

Importantly: your store’s region can only be changed back on Steam after three months.

And here’s how it works

Your region can only be changed if Steam thinks you’re staying in Germany (or any other shipping destination). To do this, use any VPN service and change your location to our northern neighbours.

After that, restart Steam. However, your region will still be Switzerland. The Steam Deck page will still refuse to let you pre-order. However, as soon as you buy something else, you’ll be given the option to change region when selecting your payment method. Enter an address in Germany and use a supported payment method such as a Revolut credit card.

Once the transaction is complete, your region will change and the Steam Deck will be available for pre-order. Unfortunately, direct purchases aren’t yet possible due to low availability.

You’ll just have to be patient. Next deliveries aren’t expected before the third quarter.

…or wait for the Swiss launch

If all this is too much trouble for you, you can also hope that Switzerland will soon be officially supplied. Valve has already announced that it will continue to supply countries this year. Maybe the Steam Deck will also be available at digitec. However, it’ll probably take a few more months before it actually gets delivered.

Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

Being the game and gadget geek that I am, working at digitec and Galaxus makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop – but it does take its toll on my wallet. I enjoy tinkering with my PC in Tim Taylor fashion and talking about games on my podcast http://www.onemorelevel.ch. To satisfy my need for speed, I get on my full suspension mountain bike and set out to find some nice trails. My thirst for culture is quenched by deep conversations over a couple of cold ones at the mostly frustrating games of FC Winterthur. more

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