Eagerly awaiting the Steam Deck 2? You might want to quit while you’re ahead, as Valve says it might not happen until 2025. While rival handheld gaming PCs are popping up left, right, and centre with enhanced specs, the storefront giant appears to be biding its time in the name of specs standardisation.
The best gaming handhelds scene has changed a lot since Valve launched the Steam Deck last year. Fierce rivals like the Asus ROG Ally and Ayaneo 2S now offer even better portable gaming PC performance for a premium price, and the Lenovo Legion GO is scheduled to enter the fold this Halloween. You’d be forgiven for thinking Valve would be thinking about putting together a Steam Deck 2 to quash its newly released foes on the battlefield as a result, but it looks like the company is resisting temptation for the greater good.
In an email conversation with The Verge, Steam Deck designer Pierre-Loup Griffais touches on the portable successor and whether it’ll arrive any time soon. Referring to the technical advancements required to make it happen, Griffais states he doesn’t "anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years," which suggests we’ll have to wait until at least 2025.
The reason? Well, Griffais says offering "a fixed performance target for developers" is important, and changing specs will only happen when there's "a significant enough increase to be had." This makes sense given that Valve has put a lot of resources into turning the Steam Deck into its own platform, and adding different configurations could hamper vital things like battery life, efficiency, and its own Verified program. Simply put, the company appears to be prioritising stability and compatibility above performance capabilities, and that’s arguably not a bad thing.
For the most part, you can play new PC games on Steam Deck, albeit with settings dialled down and frame rate expectations curbed. Valve’s Verified program provides additional incentive to developers to optimise things for the handheld both pre and post launch, and its compatibility list is ever growing as a result.
While swapping out the portable’s custom AMD APU for something like the Ryzen Z1 Extreme would undeniably give it an edge, it could harm the experience for many existing Deck owners out there, as developers may start changing performance targets to accommodate higher specs.
Ultimately, it feels like Valve is taking a very console approach to refreshing its hardware. Unlike PC and laptop manufacturers, both Sony and Microsoft tend to release new systems generationally, and that might be exactly what happens with the Steam Deck. In turn, that means we could see various new Asus, Lenovo, and other branded portable’s arrive before Valve even considers a new Deck. Letting competitors spring up unchallenged may sound a little weird, but Valve is effectively telling customers and handheld fans alike to trust the process.
If you’re eager to grab a portable right now that can boost fps further than the Steam Deck, and we’ve included some of the best deals below as a handheld helping hand:
Sticking with Valve's portable for now? Check out the best Steam Deck docks and turn the handheld into a desktop hybrid.
