Valve today I had a big day with announcement of Valve Deckard's second VR headsetand also brand new steam engine And new steam controller. What was conspicuously missing from today's news cycle was any mention of a Steam Deck successor, despite Steam Deck 2 Rumors sailed for several months. It turns out that this is largely by design, as Valve needs more time to make sure the performance gains are enough to justify an entirely new laptop.
“Obviously the Steam Deck isn't our focus today, but the same thing we said before, we're really interested in working on what's next for the Steam Deck,” said Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffet. IGN. “We are confident that this is a worthy enough performance enhancement to be used as a standalone product.”
When the big kid on the block in the portable play space is ROG Xbox Ally Xwhich easily outperforms any current version of the Steam Deck in terms of performance, it makes sense for Valve to plan for a substantially more powerful portable. What naturally bothers me as someone who has bills to pay is the price of the Steam Deck 2. Xbox has already opened the door to $1,000 handhelds, so I'm hoping that Valve will at least have mercy on us and introduce cheaper options in addition to the flagship handhelds.
“We're not interested in getting to the point where we have 20, 30 or even 50% better performance for the same battery life,” Griffeis said.
“We need something clearer than this. So we're working on chip improvements and architectural improvements, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what the next version of Steam Deck will be, but right now there are no offerings in that landscape, in the SoC. [System on a Chip] a landscape that we think will truly become the next generation Steam Deck.”
It's hard to believe that the original Steam Deck was released back in February 2022, but Valve's handheld console is indeed approaching its fourth birthday. It's natural for people to eagerly await the arrival of the first proper portable device, but it looks like we'll have to wait a while for that to happen. However, given that Valve says they have a good idea of what the successor will be like, things may be further along than you think.
Here best gaming handhelds can be played in 2025.
