Valve Designer: No Beefed Up Steam Deck 2 for ‘a Few Years’

A 12 months after its official launch, it is clear that Valve’s Steam Deck PC Gaming handheld has been an unquestionable success. Regardless of early manufacturing backlogs, Valve’s gadget has acquired a principally heat response from reviewers (us included), and it is presently occupying the quantity three spot on the corporate’s personal global best sellers list (for no matter which means, precisely).

However a 12 months on, in a market targeted on efficiency and upgrades, folks have naturally been questioning after we may see a sequel to the gadget, providing up higher efficiency – particularly after testing has proven its limits within the newest video games. However a current interview with Valve designer Lawrence Yang and engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais over at Rock Paper Shotgun has thrown chilly water on anybody hoping for a extra highly effective Steam Deck to reach any time within the subsequent couple years.

Yang does admit that the gadget’s success “has made us much more excited to look carefully at what may be improved.” However he is clear that there is mainly no likelihood that your current Steam Deck (or one you may purchase within the close to future, naturally) goes to really feel out of date for years to return (a minimum of by way of efficiency). Yang instructed the gaming outlet that “a real next-gen Deck with a major bump in horsepower wouldn’t be for a number of years.”

In fact, we might already heard late final 12 months that the subsequent iteration of the Steam Deck was seemingly going to be targeted on display and battery enhancements, somewhat than pushing extra pixels. So we weren’t anticipating the corporate to maneuver past its customized AMD Van Gogh-based APU in 2023. Now it appears seemingly that on-the-go players must wait till a minimum of 2026 (or maybe vacation season, 2025?) to get a real follow-up gadget from Valve.

This offers handheld rivals like Ayaneo a reasonably large window to ship one thing considerably extra highly effective. However these units up to now have been far more costly than the Steam Deck, and to various levels, much less refined. So we think about that loads of folks will simply maintain tight to their current Decks and see how issues play out over the subsequent few years.

In fact, Valve additionally has no actual enterprise cause to inform anybody about its future Steam Deck plans, now that it is bought its manufacturing kinks ironed out and its current gadget is outwardly promoting very effectively. If and when gross sales slide precipitously, or key video games turn out to be really unplayable on the first-gen gadget, the corporate could instantly be extra forthcoming about its plans for a extra highly effective transportable PC. 

Presuming it is already exhausting at work on designs for a next-gen gadget behind closed doorways, if Valve can supply the mandatory new parts, it might definitely transfer up these plans to someday earlier than early 2026. Or a minimum of that is what the on-the-go gamer in me needs to imagine.