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.
They have said that the steam deck 2 won’t come out anytime soon and are waiting for the tech to make it worthwhile.
That makes me happy to hear. I just want the steam deck as is so it can grow its roots deeper and allow more developers to become more comfortable with the platform. I would happily wait 5+ years for a new one to be released. Lets just keep things simple for now. Like having more supported multiplayer games, expanding access to new countries, reaching 10 million units sold, new features, 50k games verified, 5% Linux desktop market share, bug fixes, more community documentation/mods.
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.
You make a good point. Lets not jump the gun yet here.
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
But it’s not just a handheld is it? I imagine they would unlock the wattage only when docked.
That still requires a cooling system capable of handling the higher power, which will make the unit bigger, heavier, and less portable
The dock could take care of that.
This just shows you have no idea how cooling works. The most you could add to the external dock will be a fan, there’s only so much a fan can do the bottleneck is that your systems cooler is simply not large enough. A fan cannot make up for a copper heat sink that is too small, take a good look at the iFixit teardowns of the steam deck and look at how much copper that thing is working with and that’s already one of the larger handhelds. You couldn’t put a ps4 amount of power through that no matter how much fan you gave it
You couldn’t put a ps4 amount of power through that no matter how much fan you gave it
The steam deck is already about as powerful as a ps4 though? Also, the switch uses arm which is more efficient.
A fan cannot make up for a copper heat sink that is too small
…yeah? It can?
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.
If anything, they should be focused on a new Steam machine, and with a new VR headset to accompany it.
Yes that would be great!
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?)
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’ll eat mine too, but full disclosure, I wear candy-heart string bikinis
I’d join but I already ate my underwear at lunch
In this economy, you need all the fibre you can get
Ew. I’d rather just eat cotton; it would taste better.
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.
Especially now they’re forcing people to have FB accounts to use the hardware. I don’t care how much cheaper they are, that alone means I’ll never buy from Oculus.
Didn’t they introduce Oculus accounts because of the complaints about having to use FB accounts?
It’d be news to me if they did but it’s still an account under the FB umbrella and I trust Zuckbot as far as I could throw him, which isn’t far no matter what alloy he’s made out of.
Fair. It’s my main reason for not owning an Oculus headset. Sadly Microsoft decided to turn my WMR headset into e-waste later this year, so I will need to find a replacement in due time.
Sorry for your loss, my friend. I heard WMRs were pretty decent equipment.
The HP Reverb G2 v2 was the highest resolution headset on the market for a while. And it comes with the same headset solution the Index uses.
Sure. It has some flaws, such as the hand tracking accuracy not being as good as some other headsets (some people felt the inside-out tracking wasn’t as accurate as traditional lighthouse based approaches, but it’s still plenty accurate for pretty much any game I’ve played with it) but at the price point this occupied when new there was really no better value for people that wanted a headset with as little setup as possible and absolutely fantastic fidelity and resolution.
It’s a true travesty that Microsoft can just axe the entire platform with no way for users to continue using their still perfectly functioning devices.
You can use a Quest headset to play Steam.
I’d guess this has taken a lot of motivation out of Valve. They probably couldn’t do any better, as Meta has basically limitless funding.
I know. I’d just like the market to be more than a defacto monopoly with Meta selling 85% of all headsets. Especially given their privacy track record.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I would as well. That’s just the reality of the situation.
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.
Oh yea definitely tempting, if only it didn’t need base stations and a tether. Passthrough would be nice as well.
Yeah, it looks beautiful, but AR/pass-through is so handy.
Quest 3?
Doesn’t seem worth the upgrade imo, plus i’d still be in the meta ecosystem :/
Half the world still can’t buy steam deck 1…
it would be crazy if Valve didn’t produce a Steam Deck 2
They’d be crazy if they did…
a newer generation AMD APU to bring performance up, with a slightly higher resolution screen and I honestly think I would be ridiculously happy.
No, Liam. No, no, no, just no. 800p is not an accident. Using the most efficient processor was not an accident.
Asus says their biggest complaint is battery life. This is where SD reigns supreme, and you’re asking them to undo that.
If this whole Snapdragon ARM thing pans out, that’s probably the next logical evolution. Combine that with the FRORE system coolers and baby you got a stew goin!
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.
It’d be nice if they made Steamdeck available in Australia before working on Steamdeck 2.
They will, in due time. Such is the nature of tech world.
