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During an extensive interview with publication Rock Paper Shotgun, Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang dropped a potential bomb on gamers who may be eagerly awaiting a sequel to the portable.
As reported by PC Gamer, Yang stated that while he was excited about what improvements could be made to the portable system, “a true next-gen Deck with a significant bump in horsepower wouldn’t be for a few years.” And while that may be disappointing news for some who were hoping for a true sequel, there’s good reason for Valve to not invest in a Steam Deck 2 just yet.
According to Yang’s fellow Steam Deck designer, Pierre-Loup Griffais, “if high-end current-gen titles are able to scale to Deck and be a great experience, it also enables smoother performance on a wider variety of PCs, and improve the experience for the whole playerbase.”
Considering that Valve’s Steam Deck is only celebrating its first year now, we’ll most likely not see a new one for at least a few years.
Valve recently released a new update, one that makes it easier to transfer PC games between a PC and the Steam Deck. The update, which is currently only available to those in the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, allows you to perform a local data transfer between devices and is a faster alternative to using the internet for said transfer.
You can also use this feature to transfer games between two PCs, but if you want to copy game files to a PC not registered to your Steam account you’ll need to change the Local Network Game Transfers settings from Self Only (the default) to Friends Only or Everyone.
The Steam Deck 2 shouldn’t come out anytime soon
This may be a spicy hot take but I hope that Valve doesn’t release a new Steam Deck for a long time. First, the portable system is quite young and clearly has plenty of steam (pun intended) left judging by the extensive official and community support that’s still ongoing.
There are tons of accessories, programs, applications, and much more available to purchase and install now, and even more coming in the near and far future. Announcing and releasing a Steam Deck 2 would be a slap in the face to all that effort so far, since it would all have to essentially be reset.
Then there’s the monetary aspect to this as well. The Steam Deck is an incredibly powerful and flexible portable machine, but it’s also a very expensive one. And asking gamers to drop support of an expensive product they invested in, just to purchase another expensive product and then rebuy accessories and reinstall all the programs and applications as well.
And while Valve has made it no secret that there will eventually be a follow-up, I’m glad that Valve understands how releasing one so soon to the launch of its first would absolutely destroy any momentum the Steam Deck has picked up so far, and instead has opted to focus on supporting such a promising device instead.