Something to look forward to: Valve confirmed months ago that other versions of the Steam Deck would eventually arrive, but didn’t provide any details on how they would differ from the company’s first-year model. We now have more information on how Valve plans to improve its hardware in future iterations.
In an interview with The Verge, Valve shed some light on its next steps for Steam Deck, SteamOS, and other projects. The company has even intervened in recent competitor laptops and its ill-fated “Steam Machines” project.
Users shouldn’t expect a much more powerful “Steam Deck 2” anytime soon. Instead, the next version of Valve’s handheld might be a lightweight upgrade similar to the Nintendo Switch’s OLED model. Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais said they would like a new model with a better screen and longer battery life.
Valve prefers to keep the Steam Deck hardware profile consistent to make things easier for users and developers. Griffais said keeping the platform tied to a consistent level of performance will help users manage expectations and help developers optimize hardware.
Griffais thinks the current Steam Deck configuration will likely be the best a portable system can achieve for some time. Other companies have introduced portable gaming PCs recently – some a bit more powerful than Valve’s – but it thinks its 8-12W TDP is currently the best balance of performance and battery life.
The company also wants to let other laptop vendors use or fork the Steam Deck’s operating system. In July, GPD claimed that Valve contacted it regarding integrating SteamOS into the GPD Win Max 2. The policy might turn into a second attempt by Steam Machines focused on handhelds.
Valve previously attempted to introduce a range of pre-built PCs from various vendors for living rooms, complete with the Steam controller and an early version of SteamOS. However, the effort was unsuccessful. Valve can help other companies come up with alternatives to the idea now that the Steam Deck has succeeded where the Steam Machines failed.
These alternatives don’t have to be handhelds either. While Valve doesn’t have any advanced plans for a new Steam Engine, it is experimenting with TV-focused options. The company isn’t once morest letting other vendors apply the work it’s done on the Steam Deck UI to TV boxes.
Other improvements Valve is considering for future decks include making battery replacement easier, fixing Bluetooth audio lag, getting games that use anti-cheat on the Steam Deck, and more. The company also plans to offer an audio mixer so users can better manage game audio, chat audio, and music.
The ability to share power profiles, which allow users to adjust the frequency, refresh rate and power of the handheld’s GPU on a per-game basis, might also eventually arrive. Unfortunately, there probably won’t be a way to share the game’s graphics settings.
Valve also plans to do a follow-up to the Steam Controller, which it stopped producing in 2019. The company is currently too busy working on the Steam Deck but is looking for an opportunity to review the Steam Controller.
