Thanks to the country’s low cost of labor, lots of companies turn to China to manufacture their products. However, many of the products manufactured in China can’t be sold there, especially gaming devices like the Steam Deck, and it’s not due to the device’s prices or price hikes. Selling a foreign video game or gaming platform in China is a downright herculean task because of the country’s strict laws and regulations.
Before a foreign company can even begin the process, they need to partner with a local Chinese company that will handle all distribution. For instance, in 2019, Nintendo collaborated with Tencent to sell the Switch and its games in China. Valve, on the other hand, hasn’t made any moves to license out Steam Deck distribution to a local party, and until they do, the company can’t even approach the Chinese government to sell the gaming platform in any official capacity. Even if a company manages to jump through all the necessary hoops and get its console greenlit for China, their plans might not pan out.
In 2024, Reuters reported that Tencent would drop support for the Nintendo Switch in March 2026. The running theory is that the console suffered poor sales in China because the government placed so many restrictions on Tencent’s release of the Switch, including region-locking it (all other versions can play games from other countries). It wouldn’t be surprising if Valve refused to sell the Steam Deck in China because higher-ups think it wouldn’t be a wise investment.
Steam in China is a very different beast
If you know anything about gaming in China, you might assume that the Steam Deck’s unavailability there is the height of irony. After all, the country is home to the largest gamer population in the world, and many of them play on the PC. Selling the Steam Deck there sounds like a no-brainer, at least until you look at China’s Steam library.
Selling foreign games in China is possibly more difficult than selling foreign game consoles. Companies still have to partner with local Chinese entities, but every title needs to undergo a strict certification and review process that can last the better part of a year. And even when games are accepted, they end up being far more restrictive than their international counterparts. Many games in China’s Steam are heavily censored; user-made content is almost completely absent, and multiplayer titles are restricted to local Chinese servers. Plus, Steam in China has fewer games. If Steam in the U.S. is the Wild West, China’s Steam client is a ghost town.
While Chinese players can access a sizable chunk of Steam and its library through legally gray methods like VPNs, a Steam Deck wouldn’t have that option. If Valve sold a Steam Deck officially in China, it would likely be region-locked like the Switch was, restricting owners’ selection of titles — unless they had the technical knowledge to mod it to access larger gaming libraries, that is. Even if Valve sold the Steam Deck in China, it probably wouldn’t win over local gamers used to a more region-agnostic selection of titles.
PC gamers in China can still purchase a Steam Deck
While Valve can’t sell the Steam Deck in China, gamers can still purchase it in the country, just not through local vendors. Buyers can purchase imported models through online stores, and since the Steam Deck offers a wide variety of language options, users don’t need to learn a second language to navigate the menus. Getting an imported Steam Deck to work in China, however, is a different matter. Even after an imported Steam Deck makes it past China’s customs office, users will still run into two major hurdles during setup.
First, Chinese gamers who want to access Steam’s full library — and play with people outside of the country — need to use a VPN with the Steam Deck. If they already set up a working VPN to play on their gaming PC, they should be able to do the same with the Steam Deck. However, the bigger hurdle lies in its AC cable. Many countries have differently shaped electrical outlets, including China.
Anyone who imports a Steam Deck into China will also have to buy the proper adapter, which not only has to fit the outlet shape but also match voltages. Otherwise, the buyer won’t be able to charge their Steam Deck, or worse, irreparably damage their expensive import. And since the Steam Deck isn’t supported in China, it’s not like owners can send the device in for repairs if anything goes wrong.
