Valve Not Rushing Out Steam Deck 2

[T0@st]

Valve has not kept the prospect of a Steam Deck successor very secret—their Proton-based handheld gaming system will eventually become a "multi-generational product." Gabe Newell (going back to early 2022) outlined some initial ambitions for the second iteration, with a teaser: "what are the capabilities that mobile gives us, above and beyond what you would get in a traditional desktop or laptop gaming environment?" One of the project's main architects, Pierre-Loup Griffais, has discussed the prospect of a "Steam Deck 2" with The Verge and CNBC—his team's progress hinges on striking an optimal balance between performance and power efficiency (on battery). The follow-up is not arriving any time soon, despite rival companies preparing alternative portable gaming experiences—Griffais said: "I don't anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years."

Steam Deck, in its current form, seems to be the main priority for the immediate future. Griffais was a keynote speaker at Tokyo Game Show 2023, so communicated with Verge via email: "It's important to us that the Deck offers a fixed performance target for developers, and that the message to customers is simple, where every Deck can play the same games. As such, changing the performance level is not something we are taking lightly, and we only want to do so when there is a significant enough increase to be had...but we're still closely monitoring innovations in architectures and fabrication processes to see where things are going." Griffais re-confirmed this stance in an interview with CNBC (at TGS 2023)—Valve wants more gamers to adopt the platform before a push into next-gen—with improved user interfaces, more development partners and an ironing out of supply chain issues: "We're looking at this performance target that we have as a stable target for a couple years."



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[FeelinFroggy]

What they mean is there is nothing that is efficient enough on the market to be worthy of an upgrade. The challenge in AAA handheld gaming will always be efficiency because if you have to plug it in to play, then why not just get a laptop?

 

[claylomax]

Good news.

 

[Makaveli]

sounds like a Zen 6 based Deck 2 maybe?

 

[drno2]

The challenge in AAA handheld gaming will always be efficiency because if you have to plug it in to play, then why not just get a laptop?

You say that, but if the discussion was about laptops, I guaratee you someone would have said "if you have to plug it in to play, then why not just get a desktop?"

People will NEVER be satisfied with the efficiency of a battery-powered device. Everyone has different needs and wants. Heck, there's a person on my company's public forums that keeps whining we don't support mod tools on the steam deck! Definitely not a priority for us to support people creating mods on a handheld device running our game through a compatibility layer. But apparently, for this person it's extremely important to have this ability.

So again, to reiterate - different people will define efficiency differently.

 

[tvshacker]

sounds like a Zen 6 based Deck 2 maybe?

So far RDNA3 is nothing to write home about, would it be RDNA3.5 or 4?

 

[darakian]

So far RDNA3 is nothing to write home about, would it be RDNA3.5 or 4?

Probably RDNA 5

 

[Makaveli]

So far RDNA3 is nothing to write home about, would it be RDNA3.5 or 4?

If they were releasing a refresh in 2024 I could have seen it being Zen 5 + RDNA 3.5 however I agree with Darakian RDNA 5 looks good if we are talking a 2026 time frame.

 

[kapone32]

I am sure that Valve is making enough money from the Steam Deck to have the 2 remain in the design stage for now. There are some serious coming down the pipe that will make the Steam Deck (or variants) necessary for Gamers that travel to work or school.

 

[qlum]

I don't think it's that RDNA 3 is that bad per se, it's that AMD has not focussed on a chip meant for the power envelope the deck wants.
The performance leap Valve probably wants is in the triple digits, which generally does take a while.

I do hope that the Deck becomes a more and more important factor for development, not just as someone who dailies Linux, but also from the perception of system requirements.
If games have to at least look decent at 30fps on the deck, that requires a decent bit of scaling and optimization. It should be doable for a lot of games but it requires effort.

 

[Daven]

Valve has not released a sequel to any of its IP in over ten years. With the exception of Alyx to promote virtual gaming, everything has been one hit wonders since DOTA2. I would not hold my breath for ANY follow on to the Deck.

 

[farmertrue]

Not rushing out another Steam Deck because they are finally ramping up to release their follow up to their Index and Steam VR? I can see Valve releasing something that is a combination of what they learned with the Steam Deck and the Index to make an insane VR/XR device that no company has done yet. As to what exactly that may be? I really don't know but I could see a stand alone device and perhaps cloud based gaming. The VR enthusiast in me can dream...

 

[Space Lynx]

this is good news. I want a proper upgrade in 2-3 years, hopefully with rdna5 and OLED.

 

[Tom Yum]

Valve has not released a sequel to any of its IP in over ten years. With the exception of Alyx to promote virtual gaming, everything has been one hit wonders since DOTA2. I would not hold my breath for ANY follow on to the Deck.

Well, they have never released a third sequel of anything, so there is a fair chance we'll see a Steam Deck 2.

Steam Deck 3 though will never happen, everyone knows Valve can't count to three.

 

[Nordic]

When the Deck's APU definitively outperforms the Z1 extreme when both are 10w or below and has better minimum FPS in 3/5 games tested at 15w according to Gamers Nexus, why change what works? The other people jumping into the handheld market are releasing more expensive worse products.

 

[Space Lynx]

When the Deck's APU definitively outperforms the Z1 extreme when both are 10w or below and has better minimum FPS in 3/5 games tested at 15w according to Gamers Nexus, why change what works? The other people jumping into the handheld market are releasing more expensive worse products.

Not to mention those models don't have SteamOS, which imo is the crown jewel, makes portable gaming super awesome. Console like experience and its just super fast overall, and makes lot of games that struggle on Windows play well, Prototype for example is hard to get running on Windows PC, but instantly works perfectly on SteamOS.

SteamOS is a gem and I hope it never goes away.

 

[dick_cheney]

I'd guess RDNA 4, RDNA 5 is 2027.

 

[Space Lynx]

TSMC Reveals 2nm Node: 30% More Performance by 2025

----so maybe we will get a RDNA4 custom 2nm node APU for Deck 2. that would be pretty dang epic

 

[LabRat 891]

I'd go for a Steam Deck 1.5:
Dieshrink and USB4 (for eGPU/desktop replacement).

Otherwise, I tend to agree with Valve's commentary.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

They might have had some early plans for a late 2024 successor, but then they saw the Switch 2's horrible specs (probably a 1.3TFLOPs Ampere docked and 8GB RAM on a 64bit bus) and decided the Deck could comfortably hold an extra year or more.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

They might have had some early plans for a late 2024 successor, but then they saw the Switch 2's horrible specs (probably a 1.3TFLOPs Ampere docked and 8GB RAM on a 64bit bus) and decided the Deck could comfortably hold an extra year or more.

The Switch and Steam Deck are not competing with each other though.

 

[Daven]

The Switch and Steam Deck are not competing with each other though.

They are competing in that they both play games, are both handhelds and that a potential, diverse gaming customer is more likely to decide between the two but not buy both. A diverse gamer might have a gaming PC but also a console and is looking to game on the go.

 

[Denver]

If the focus is on efficiency, at a certain point these APUs could have 3D cache in the future.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

They are competing in that they both play games, are both handhelds and that a potential, diverse gaming customer is more likely to decide between the two but not buy both. A diverse gamer might have a gaming PC but also a console and is looking to game on the go.

Not really. The point of a Nintendo console is to play Nintendo games and use quirky Nintendo hardware. Nintendo is always off on their own little island doing their own things. Even in the console space Nintendo isn't really directly competing like Sony and Microsoft are. Nintendo is always about creating a platform and then unique first or direct partner games. If other stuff shows up on it that's nice but that's not the point. Which is why the moment Nintendo makes say a multi platform Zelda, Metroid, and Mario is the moment Nintendo goes under and those franchises die out never to be seen again. Hence all the "please port Zelda to PC" is actually saying "please kill off Zelda so we never see another one ever again because I hate Zelda and want to kill it off".

They just simply aren't in direct competition with really anyone and haven't been since the 16bit era war with SEGA. The DS wasn't actually competing with the PSP it did something completely different just as the 3DS wasn't competing with the PS Vita. The Wii controlers wasn't actually competing with the PS3 or the 360 it did something utterly different. The Switch isn't competing with Sony or Microsoft either.

It's a good thing as well. Nintendo comes up with some bonkers stuff but you can see the evolution from the Wii controlers to some of the VR controllers. The Steam Deck obvious took a lot of inspiration from the Switch. The N64 introduced analogue sticks. The DS brought out touch screen gaming. A lot of games on other platforms clearly got some of their ideas and other stuff from various Zelda, Mario, and Metroid games. Hell there are dozens of Smash Brothers clones on Steam right now, same with Animal Crossing. They don't compete really with others but they sure as shit come out with a lot of great ideas that other companies ape and at times do better and other times do worse at.

We're all better off with Nintendo being their crazy own selves and not really giving a damn about anyone else.

 

[Frick]

Which is why the moment Nintendo makes say a multi platform Zelda, Metroid, and Mario is the moment Nintendo goes under and those franchises die out never to be seen again. Hence all the "please port Zelda to PC" is actually saying "please kill off Zelda so we never see another one ever again because I hate Zelda and want to kill it off".

I really don't think releasing old Nintendo games on PC would kill Nintendo. I cannot imagine BotW on PC say in 2024 would do anything else than bring them a lot of money.