Valve Teases Steam Deck 2 Release

Steam Deck just released on February 25, 2022, so it seems a bit early to be thinking about a successor. However, with the Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, Valve may be forced to release a successor sooner rather than later to maintain a foothold in the handheld market. However, with the PS6 and next Xbox likely coming around 2028, it may be better to wait until this date is closer to ensure it offers a competitive experience. Whatever tactic Valve ends up deploying, there won't be a Steam Deck 2 anytime soon, as according to Valve coder Pierre-Lou Griffais, the current expectation is a successor won't be out "in the next couple of years."

"Right now we're kind of looking at this performance target that we have as a stable target for a couple years," said the coder. ""We think that it's a pretty sweet spot in terms of being able to play all the experiences from this new generation and so far, the new releases are coming out with great experiences on Steam Deck. Obviously, we're working with developers on future releases and we're monitoring the feedback there but so far, I think it has been pretty good on the horsepower front."

Griffsair continued, noting that a new more powerful handheld would be hard to deliver right now without sacrifices elsewhere as obviously it would have to maintain a similar price point. Of course, Valve could release a more powerful successor without comprising the handheld's battery and other components, however, to do this it would need to raise the price. And typically when you release a hardware successor you want to avoid this. The audience has expectations and Valve seems to be aware of this according to the words of Griffsair. 

LIVE from the Tokyo Game Show – the power of PC gaming, in your hand. We spoke to one of the brainchilds of the Steam Deck, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais on the challenges, as games get bigger.@willkoulouris @Valvesoftware @Plagman2 #TGS2023 @CapcomUSA_ @Capcomasia @OnDeck pic.twitter.com/Adz34dMqf3

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"It's important to us that the Deck offers a fixed performance target for developers, and that the message to customers is simple, where every Deck can play the same games," said the coder. "As such, changing the performance level is not something we are taking lightly, and we only want to do so when there is a significant enough increase to be had. We also don't want more performance to come at a significant cost to power efficiency and battery life. I don't anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years, but we're still closely monitoring innovations in architectures and fabrication processes to see where things are going there."

A Steam Deck successor between the release of the next Nintendo console and the PS5/next Xbox would be a sweet spot for Valve, but it sounds like Valve is less concerned about what the competition is doing and more about the limitations of what it can do, which are pretty limiting at the moment. That said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. When do you think a Steam Deck 2 will release and what would you like to see from the hypothetical machine?

H/T, VGC.