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Here’s everything we know about Valve’s successor to the handheld Steam Deck.
Valve has not officially unveiled a successor to the Steam Deck, but we know that it’s coming. The company has made no secret of the fact that it wants the Steam Deck to be a multigenerational product line, going beyond its recent OLED refresh. In fact, it has already discussed plans to manufacture a Steam Deck 2 multiple times, and rumours have surfaced regarding the next-gen console’s technical specs and release date.
Until Valve decides to fully reveal the console, however, here’s everything we know about the Steam Deck 2:
Steam Deck 2 release date
In a 2023 interview with The Verge, Valve said that it would have to wait for “innovations in architectures and fabrication processes” to ensure that a successor to the console wouldn’t bump up gaming performance “at a significant cost to power efficiency and battery life.” Valve wants every Steam Deck to play the same games, and its successor needs to do that without sacrificing the battery life of its predecessor.
In the interview, Valve said that it didn’t “anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years.” In another 2023 interview with Bloomberg, a designer from Valve confirmed that “a ‘next-generation’ power upgrade won't be available for at least two or three years.” However, the designer also said that Valve is “thinking about Steam Deck 2 at all times,” as the company monitors for a big leap in technology from chipmakers like the original Steam Deck’s AMD.
It sounds like Valve isn’t expecting the Steam Deck to arrive anytime before 2025, maybe even 2026, as it waits on new technology that makes a successor worth manufacturing. New handheld devices like the Asus ROG Ally boast better technical specifications than the Steam Deck, proving that better tech does exist - it’s just not worth the leap to a new console yet. Whether or not Valve opts to do a mid-generation console refresh, as Sony did with the PlayStation 4 Pro, is yet to be seen. In short: don’t expect the Steam Deck 2 to arrive anytime soon.
Steam Deck 2 hardware specifications
The Steam Deck 2 isn’t likely to be released until Valve can make a next-gen-like upgrade to its performance, but from past interviews with its developers, we can pinpoint exactly where those upgrades are going to be focused. The Steam Deck line has already been given a refresh with a new OLED display, much like the Nintendo Switch. That doesn’t mean that its successor will automatically launch with an OLED display, but we should at least see a bump in its refresh rate and screen resolution. Either way, the next-gen leap Valve is looking for will come from more significant changes under the hood.
Current Steam Deck competitors like the Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally already boast better processors than the Steam Deck, so that’s going to be an area Valve will look to improve on. For a point of comparison, the Steam Deck OLED has a Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz CPU, while the ROG Ally’s CPU is a Z1 Extreme processor with Zen 4 architecture. The Steam Deck 2 is at the very least going to have to match the latter’s processor, if not offer a direct upgrade.
Two years ago, YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead also reported that Valve was looking to include an RDNA 3 GPU in the Steam Deck 2. This is now a little outdated, seeing as the RDNA 4 is already rumoured to launch in late 2024 to early 2025 - but it could arrive just in time for the handheld to feature it. Valve has also spoken about not wanting the device to prioritise gaming performance over battery life, so a battery upgrade is inevitable.
Steam Deck 2 pricing
The Steam Deck OLED is now available for purchase at a starting price of $549, but Valve president Gabe Newell has confirmed with Edge Magazine that the original console’s most expensive $650 model has become its most popular model by far. Newell said that this took the company by surprise, as customers were “basically saying, 'We would like an even more expensive version of this,' in terms of horsepower capabilities or whatever. You know, that's why we always love to get something out there and ship it. Because we learn a lot from that, and it helps frame our thinking for Deck 2."
Keeping that in mind, it’s almost a sure thing that the Steam Deck 2 is going to be more expensive than the Steam Deck OLED’s current $549 starting price. It could go all the way up to $650 and beyond, now that Valve knows that its customers are willing to fork out more money to get the best version of its hardware available. Expect the Steam Deck’s successor to be a lot more expensive than the original.
And there you have it! That’s everything we know about the Steam Deck 2 right now, but be sure to check back for more of our coverage when Valve gives the handheld console a full reveal. In the meantime, here’s everything we know about the Nintendo Switch 2.
