How did hardware giveaway work?

Handheld game console (DS). Laptop is a close second these days, tho.

PS5 is my main, and PC is a secondary - mostly cause its almost 12 years old... 😅

This is an interesting question, so I'm bumping in hope of having it answered.

My guess is that you can "gift" them as an Steam item. And then the preson "redeems" the gift and Steam mails it to them.

I'm also with the gift theory. You can't buy a key for the Steam Controller or SteamDeck.

Refurbished ones have been out of stock for, dunno, 16-18 months? Mine is a refurbished one. I examined it carefully on opening the case. I couldn't find any sign of previous use.

I content myself with a 4K 65" 120Hz screen. I'd rather have a high refresh 100" 8K solution but technology isn't there yet. I have to admit portability is rather limited though.

Main:
-Desktop computer using parts from 2012 (hdd), 2016(ssd replacement), 2017(gpu 1080ti along with a 49'' 4k tv that died last year around october) and 2022(new mobo,32gb ram ddr4, 850w 80+ gold psu and r5 5600g cpu replacements). Along with a curved widescreen 32'' 1440p 144hz asus gaming monitor.

Secondary:
-Steam deck lcd 64gb with 256gb sd card, used when i go to bed for mostly light gaming or backlog games in general
-ps5 + lg oled 55' b4 ai (bought recently during black friday to replace old tv that went rip)
-nintendo switch v2 (sometimes, mostly when i forget to charge SD or when i feel like removing the dust on the switch)

"Collecting dust", as in haven't used them in over a year or very rarelly:
-valve index vr headset (the VR hype died quick for me, although it was fun while it lasted)
-steam link (never used it, bought it cheap from a store right before it was discontinued, it was extremlly cheap, same with controller. Both went up in price after discontinued)
-xbox series x (collecting dust since i unsubbed from gamepass 3 years ago or so, no clue if it even works anymore)
-xbox one fat 500gb (paperweight, was working about a year ago or so as i was planning on making a stream tool for my bedroom, no clue if it works now)
-xbox one x cp 2077 edition (used it recently after not using it for like a year)
-original xbox
-dreamcast
-ps4 pro (haven't touched since i bought ps5 ~2 years ago)
-ps3 slim
-ps2 slim
-xbox 360 slim
-sega mega drive 2 (damaged cables, i think its the only system i have that is not working, at least based from last time i checked, which was right before covid)
-nintendo 2ds xl for pokemon games (used it like 6 months ago)
-psp slim for some old racing games (also modded, used it like 6 months ago)

Other than this, i had a gaming phone which died on xmas day 2024 as i put it up to charge and woke up with it completely dead, asus rog phone 2 512gb storage and 12gb ram, which is now a paperweight, i'm trying to get it fixed but considering the very limited popularity of the phone, it is hard to find spare parts in my area, so fixing it is not possible or extremelly expensive for an "old phone". So yes, i lost 2 of my most expensive purchases last year just like that. Both simply just stopped working and give no life signals. Had to buy a samsung replacement from the used market for 100€ just to have a phone to go by, which performs really well, other than the company phone which i keep safe most of the time and avoid using it outside of work, and well the old android phone i used to have before the asus one, which is slow but i use it from time to time mostly to watch anime or tv series while in bed, it's slow but it works for this at least.

Apparently you can't do a SG giveaway for "Steam Controller" anymore. If you go to new-giveaway page and enter 353370 in search box it will return no results, so you can't even select it in the list of games.

As for "Steam Deck", entering appid 2550670 will give a hit, but no one has done so (yet?) 😂

Got a Steam Controller years ago when they were discontinued and priced 95% off. Occasionally us it.
If there were GA's, I missed them.
Have even looked at the Steam Decks.

Desktop and Steam Deck are my venues.

I also have

a bricked PS5
gold PS4
garnet PS3
white Vita
Switch
Dreamcast
couple OG Xboxes including one of the green Halo versions.
GameCube
PS1 and a PSOne
an Ouya somewhere around here lol
and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting a couple old consoles. Haven't looked through those crates in a while.

I also have an opened and an unopened Steam controller and an unopened Steam link.