Ahead-looking: Valve is making it clear that they are not inquisitive about releasing yearly updates with solely minor upgrades for its handhelds. For the Steam Deck follow-up, they’ve one thing a lot greater in thoughts: a “generational leap” in efficiency with out sacrificing battery life.
In a current interview, Valve’s Lawrence Yang rejected the thought of bumping specs yearly like some rivals. He mentioned the corporate has no plans to launch new variations of the identical console annually, as they do not see a cause to take action. Yang argued that dashing out frequent refreshes with solely slight enhancements is “unfair” to shoppers who just lately bought the earlier mannequin.
As an alternative of this sort of minor annual tune-up, Valve intends to carry off till there’s a real generational bounce in energy earlier than releasing the Steam Deck 2, based on Yang. He confirmed they goal to attend for a major compute improve that does not compromise battery life earlier than delivery a real second technology.
The unique Steam Deck launched again in February 2022, powered by the AMD Zen 2 4c/8t CPU. Whereas it did obtain an improve November 2023 within the type of an OLED model, the enhancements have been largely restricted to the show and battery.
That is to not say that Valve is resting on its laurels, ready for the subsequent main cellular APU launch from AMD/Intel. In a separate interview with Press Begin, Yang teased that work on a Steam Deck sequel is formally underway and that they may apply “learnings” from the unique mannequin.
As for when this generational leap will truly arrive, the timing stays unsure, however there are some potential clues on the horizon. AMD’s all-new Zen 5 CPU structure and RDNA 3.5 GPU silicon are anticipated to debut in upcoming gaming handhelds quickly. With these chips now obtainable, anticipation is constructing for the Ryzen Z2 sequence.
Valve’s ambitions lengthen past {hardware}, although. The corporate is taking steps to reinforce the general gaming expertise for Deck house owners and probably the broader PC gaming group. As an illustration, the Arch Linux group just lately introduced a collaboration with Valve to streamline the Arch Linux distribution that powers SteamOS.
Moreover, Valve appears inquisitive about increasing the attain of SteamOS to garner extra developer assist, with hints suggesting {that a} normal SteamOS distribution launch might be within the works.