Valve unveiled off a new gaming PC this week, giving Steam fans some new hardware to consider. The Steam Deck 2 didn’t make an appearance—and it won’t be showing up for some time, by the sound of it. But that doesn’t mean Valve is resting on its laurels when it comes to dreaming up the next version of its popular portable gaming device. Our colleagues at IGN checked in with Valve and discovered that the company is waiting for the right technology to make the Steam Deck 2 worth the wait.
Pierre-Loup Griffais, a Valve software engineer, said to IGN that Valve has “a pretty good idea” of what the Steam Deck’s next generation could look like, but indicated that the technology just isn’t there yet for what Valve wants to do. Specifically, it seems that Valve is keeping an eye out for a system on a chip (SoC) that can produce the graphics quality it wants while allowing for good battery life.
Although the Steam Deck is more than three years old, Valve seems to have time to design the successor it wants. The original Steam Deck got a hardware refresh in the form of the Steam Deck OLED in November of 2023, which sported a better display and more memory, among other upgrades. The refresh breathed new life into the portable game console and helped Linux cross the 3% mark (in the Steam Hardware & Software Survey) for the first time this October. (Steam Decks run the Linux-based SteamOS Holo.) Since the Steam Deck is still attracting buyers, there’s no need for Valve to rush.
Credit: Nvidia
The products announced this month give Steam users some interesting new options, anyway. The Steam Frame enters the VR headset world, cutting the cords of the venerable Valve Index headset and giving users the freedom that VR gaming really needs. And it goes beyond gaming, as our sibling publication, PCMag, notes, letting Valve compete with Meta in the VR-for-everything space.
As for the Steam Machine, it’s an intriguing little gaming PC. Valve paired an AMD Zen 4 processor with an RDNA3 GPU, giving it (according to Valve) six times more power than a Steam Deck. Although it’s a PC, the Steam Machine has a console feel to it, which Valve seems to be encouraging. The company displays pictures and videos of the Steam Machine in various locations, including family rooms and bedrooms, often with game controllers nearby. “Put it under your TV,” one note on the site reads. “Set it on your desk. Hide it under a banana.”
So, don’t hold your breath for the Steam Deck 2 to appear anytime soon. For now, Valve seems content to wait and watch for hardware that can make its next portable console worth getting excited about.
