With a Nintendo Switch 2 on the way, I hope Valve make a Steam Deck 2
I love my Steam Deck, as any regular reader will know. It's my favourite gaming device but it could always be better right? And with competition hot (hi Nintendo), I hope Valve have more plans.
The switch is 7 years old, the deck is barely 2 years old. There no need for a deck 2.
I really hope Valve doesn't start making small incremental changes to the Steam Deck like devices in the emulation handheld scene (Powkiddy, Anbernic, etc.) do.
I'd feel a lot less incentivised to buy one if I felt like my device was going to immediately age out. I imagine less developers would make system settings specifically for the Steam Deck like Cyberpunk 2077 did or design third party peripherals.
You make a good point. Lets not jump the gun yet here.
The hardware inside the switch is 12 years old. It was old before it was born. Doesn't make it bad, but by comparison the hardware inside the Steamdeck is actually only 2 years old.
I'm all for an eventual steam deck 2, but man, I've absolutely loved my deck and can't imagine a reason to upgrade any time soon. It does everything I want for now.
Only thing I want my Steam Deck to do that it can't is force these asshat companies into removing their bullshit must be online to play single player games "feature".
Same opinion. I bought both the original deck and the OLED variant.
I suppose I would entertain things if they came up with some kind of ARM chip more similar to the M series apple silicon, but right now, the thing is BEAST. There is just going to be a limit to how much hardware power and how much battery power can be paired and still keep the thing in the existing form factor.
My current opinion is that right now, its more/ better software that we need. I want a button based key board that works in desktop mode.
So I don't really see a point in a major update until there is a significant hardware redesign.
The point of the Deck versus anything else was that it was common x86 architecture and it runs skinned linux, thus letting us have access to virtually all our library.
Moving to ARM based silicon would massively change things in that regard. We don't want yet another platform to have to worry about ports for. The Steam Deck is a PC and that's it's goal
Didn't we just get a new steam deck...
I doubt there is anything to upgrade this cycle IMHO
That was my first thought, too.
What would a "Steam Deck 2" be in peoples minds? Less incremental changes? The repairability and modability of the Steam Deck kind of means it doesn't have a direct comparability to console "alternatives". Not to mention the less closed software architecture it provides.
I'm highly skeptical the hardware in the switch 2 will even be able to compete with what the steam deck already has.
100%
Nintendo is running on good will fumes from previous generations of games. Its basically the same strategy Marvel/ Disney/ Starwars, etc.. use with franchise management.
The leaks say ps4/ps4 pro levels of performance + games will be optimized specifically for it so it might end up running games better than the steam deck.
Leaks say a lot things, and are almost always wrong. The idea that you could put a PS4 level of performance in a handheld with reasonable battery life is absurd.
Valve put a damn good custom amd apu in the deck, and it's limited to 15w if they really wanted they could just slap a higher power limit and get way more performance. But then it would run too hot and it's battery life would be practically non-existent. And considering that was a partnership with AMD to help design that I highly doubt Nintendo has magically figured out something that neither valve nor AMD knew in terms of how to get that kind of performance out of a small power budget
The steam deck has only been out for two years. It's too soon to be thinking about successor.
I would rather have Valve follow a consistent release schedule as Valve should focus more on software improvements and features to squeeze out more potential from the original steam deck and have the third party developers target one handheld hardware baseline for every 5-7 years.
Agreed. The Deck is plenty powerful for most games, and even a lot of newer releases play fine with lower graphics settings, and with the Deck's screen size and resolution, lower settings aren't noticeable in most games.
I've seen a lot of reviewers also mention that they don't notice or mind lower framerate on the Deck, either, and I agree; there's something about the form factor that makes the framerate less important.
Releasing too many SKUs will just confuse the market and lead to fragmentation. 4 years is the absolute soonest I will think higher specs might be justified.
The OLED model was a good choice; a nominal increase in performance with a fantastic display and the exact same shell dimensions. Developers don't need to target multiple devices if they're trying to make their games work on the Deck, and accessories all still work (aside from maybe screen protectors, I guess?)
There isn't much call for a Deck 2 yet. I'm more interested in Valve bringing out the Index 2 first. Luckily, we aren't waiting on the Index 3 yet otherwise I'd be less certain of it happening.
I really want to see Valve champion PCVR as much as FB has been pushing stand-alone VR. There is a decent-sized market there, but it feels like more and more large players are existing VR, leaving FB/Meta as the only one left standing (see Microsoft killing WMR, Sony pretty much abandoning PSVR despite it being the #2 selling VR platform). And as much as I commend Meta/Oculus for their innovations and continued research in this space, I don't think it's in anyone's best interest to see the market get monopolized by Meta.
Id eat my underpants if there was a single thing the new switch could do that the deck could not, excluding some proprietary bullshit gimmick that the deck could probably be coaxed into.
I don't want a Steam Deck 2. I want Steam Deck to live up to the upgradability and customizability that Valve had originally empasized for it.
It would be amazing to be able to just swap the main board for a GPU update. on the OG deck, it's the single biggest bottleneck I run into. (for docked gaming on a big screen). Plus a better GPU would allow it to run cooler when only doing 720p and quieter on the fan.
but, Id on't want to buy another Steam Deck :p
I hope they make another vr headset first
Same
I'm more looking forward to their next VR system so i can ditch the quest 2
There's this beast, which requires some index components to fully operate and will put you out about $1500 USD with the required Valve Index components, but it does look pretty amazing.
Quest 3?
Doesn't seem worth the upgrade imo, plus i'd still be in the meta ecosystem :/
I wouldn't be surprised if they try to use some proprietary connector to dock it to an external GPU enclosure on some kind of thunderbolt bus. It's kind of a Nintendo way of making a series S and series X.
Half the world still can't buy steam deck 1...
It’d be nice if they made Steamdeck available in Australia before working on Steamdeck 2.
I think Valve likes to wait until the technology has become available for the sequel to be a massive improvement in every aspect, which I can respect.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now, I'm not dumb enough to think that the Steam Deck is in actual competition with the Nintendo Switch.
We all knew a Nintendo Switch 2 would happen, there just hadn't been any real proper confirmation, until now.
Writing on social media, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa posted on May 7th:
But it feels increasingly weird to have a dedicated solid box permanently attached to a single TV.
Being able to take a much smaller device with you to play anywhere, and additionally have the ability to hook it up to a TV whenever you want just feels so much better.
The OLED design gave us enough improvements inside to various parts so thinking on what they should add in for the big number 2: a newer generation AMD APU to bring performance up, with a slightly higher resolution screen and I honestly think I would be ridiculously happy.
The original article contains 614 words, the summary contains 146 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
They will, in due time. Such is the nature of tech world.
I've bad feeling about SteamDeck 2.
So far, the biggest bourdary for Valve seem to be: no 3 for software, no 2 for hardware (but we may still get a SteamDeck 1: Episode 1... if SteamDeck OLED isn't already that)
