In a rather decisive statement made shortly after the launch of Valve’s handheld in Australia, Steam Deck product designer Lawrence Yang outright condemned the release of yearly products that are only “incrementally better” than the previous design.
While the Steam Deck is still the best handheld gaming PC all-around, it’s aging AMD APU is starting to fall behind competitors in terms of power. Despite this, Valve isn’t going to turn to annual releases and will instead wait for the right technology to come along before releasing an all new handheld.
In an interview with Reviews.org, Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehyyat spoke on the success of the Deck, it’s Australian launch, and most importantly, what’s next for the brand.
The most curious quote comes from Yang who, when addressing what is next, says “It is important to us, and we’ve tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence”.
This was followed up with “we’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that. And, honestly, from our perspective, that’s kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that’s only incrementally better. So we really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck.”
It’s a pretty damning statement that shows Valve isn’t rushing into it’s plans for a Steam Deck 2, and while the Steam Deck OLED has proven popular despite it’s lack of improvements, it hasn’t tempted the company into pushing an annual release model, and all but confirms no announcements are coming in 2024.
While it isn’t outright stated, it’s hard to ignore that Yang may be referring to Asus and it’s three ROG Ally handhelds, all released within the space of 13 months, although the non-Extreme model was never sold as being an upgrade, but instead a cheaper alternative with less power. That being said, Valve’s OLED release was hardly in keeping with what is being preached here in regards to incremental upgrades.
Valve, however, appear happy to wait for a true next-generation device before pushing a new handheld, and I have to admit, it’s the smartest play given it’s current perceived status as the leading handheld gaming PC.
While you wait for a new Steam Deck, you can check out our Asus ROG Ally X review for a peak at the biggest threat to Valve’s handheld crown.