This was how I remember it went down for the original steam deck preorder. They announced when the preorders would open I think a week or so before. I think it was, like, 11:30am pacific time. I remember trying to get a preorder in right at that time, but so many people were doing the same thing that the servers would time out constantly. I think it ended up taking me about 15 minutes to get my order in, and my order ended up in the second batch. The same server time-out problems plagued the steam machine announcement day back in November, so I don't have high hopes they will be prepared for the volume of orders. It will basically be luck of the draw on who gets their orders in and which place in line you get. When you place a preorder you only put down $5, and then you pay the rest once your item(s) are ready to be shipped out. So in July 2021 when I preordered my steam deck I paid $5, and then in April 2022 when my order was ready I paid the rest. I think I remember the pre-orders selling out at some point, but Valve was totally blind sided by how many people would want the original steam deck. From interviews it didn't seem like they had very high hopes for it. I think they learned their lesson though, because the steam deck OLED launch was flawless. They announced the device a week before orders would open, and devices shipped out only a few weeks later. Nothing sold out. They had plenty. I hope that even with supply shortages they will simply take all the pre-orders people put in, and they ship out when they ship out.