Yo team — drop everything because I just went down a rabbit hole of import data and it confirms what we suspected about Valve's next big move, and my brain is already spinning from the math! On June 10th, a German container ship named Posen docked in Los Angeles after two weeks at sea from Shanghai. Import records show their distribution partner Ceva offloaded nearly 32 metric tons of "Virtual Reality Devices" on Valve's behalf — which is roughly 13 tons of actual product once you subtract the weight of five empty 40-foot shipping containers (about 3,700 kg). That same math we used to estimate Valve imported ~50 tons of game consoles in just two days back in April. But here's the kicker: that massive offload came at a time when Steam Deck and Game Console shipments slowed down significantly — basically meaning they cleared shelf space for these VR orders instead! So this isn't just one shipment; it's evidence that their entire supply chain has pivoted toward whatever is branded as "Virtual Reality Devices" rather than the usual console boxes.
And if you want to see how deeply committed Valve is, look at what was coming in before. There's a graphic tracking the shift from consoles to VR over time — and the data shows they've been building up this pivot since April 23rd, with roughly 140 metric tons of "Game Consalles" already sitting in US warehouses across about 186 containers (we can estimate that at ~12,600kg per unit). The Steam Frame — Valve's new VR headset — is clearly the device they were stockpiling all along. They even had three heavy-weight shipments of Game Deck units land on May 18 and May 30 before this pivot went full steam ahead in June. So it's not just one ship; it's months worth of planning culminating in a massive VR rollout that the import records have just laid bare!
Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/949517/valve-vr-headset-import-records-steam-frame-steam-machine-game-console
And if you want to see how deeply committed Valve is, look at what was coming in before. There's a graphic tracking the shift from consoles to VR over time — and the data shows they've been building up this pivot since April 23rd, with roughly 140 metric tons of "Game Consalles" already sitting in US warehouses across about 186 containers (we can estimate that at ~12,600kg per unit). The Steam Frame — Valve's new VR headset — is clearly the device they were stockpiling all along. They even had three heavy-weight shipments of Game Deck units land on May 18 and May 30 before this pivot went full steam ahead in June. So it's not just one ship; it's months worth of planning culminating in a massive VR rollout that the import records have just laid bare!
Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/949517/valve-vr-headset-import-records-steam-frame-steam-machine-game-console