I love my Steam Deck, as any regular reader will know. It's my favourite gaming device but it could always be better right? And with competition hot (hi Nintendo), I hope Valve have more plans.
Now, I'm not dumb enough to think that the Steam Deck is in actual competition with the Nintendo Switch. That's just not a reality. The Switch has sold over 140 million units and continues to sell millions, it's in stores everywhere, people buy it for their children, for themselves and yeah — you get the idea. But still, for us PC fans the Steam Deck (and specifically us Linux lot) and other PC handhelds are simply awesome.
We all knew a Nintendo Switch 2 would happen, there just hadn't been any real proper confirmation, until now. Writing on social media, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa posted on May 7th:
This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.
So sometime before the end of March 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be revealed.
That leads me to think about the future. The Switch 2 will no doubt sell by the truck-loads once again. So let's just set that aside because it's a different market overall. Still, we have other handheld PC gaming vendors appearing often like the ROG Ally, Legion GO, MSI Claw, various devices from OneXPlayer, GPD, Ayaneo and more on the way so there's really a lot of these devices now.
To me, handheld gaming like this is the future. You may think I am heavily biased, and in many ways I am (obviously, I run this website) but I'm a tech-fan. I have a PlayStation, a Switch, an Xbox and more. But it feels increasingly weird to have a dedicated solid box permanently attached to a single TV. I actually don't like that at all now. Being able to take a much smaller device with you to play anywhere, and additionally have the ability to hook it up to a TV whenever you want just feels so much better. Nintendo definitely had the right idea, as did Valve.
We've seen in the past that Valve have said pretty clearly they had plans to keep going, and with the Steam Deck still continuing to sell constantly, it would be crazy if Valve didn't produce a Steam Deck 2. Even though you could argue the Steam Deck OLED is such a ridiculous improvement it might as well be a Steam Deck 2, I want more. A lot more.
The current shell design is just fine, I don't think Valve really need to do many changes there at all. The OLED design gave us enough improvements inside to various parts so thinking on what they should add in for the big number 2: a newer generation AMD APU to bring performance up, with a slightly higher resolution screen and I honestly think I would be ridiculously happy. It doesn't take much. Performance being the biggest one and with more new AMD chips on the way, give it another year for the generation after that (or their refresh) and we could be looking at a really fun performance boost.
So, let's say a Steam Deck 2 announcement in late 2026. Make it so, Valve.
What do you think? And what do you now want from a Steam Deck 2?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus last year and I've put far more hours into it than I ever did my Deck, because I just like the form factor so much more. Give me SteamOS at this size.
Obviously I wouldn't expect much in the way of power, but if it runs my favorite 2D indie games I'll be happy.
QuoteTo me, handheld gaming like this is the future. You may think I am heavily biased, and in many ways I am (obviously, I run this website) but I'm a tech-fan. I have a PlayStation, a Switch, an Xbox and more. But it feels increasingly weird to have a dedicated solid box permanently attached to a single TV. I actually don't like that at all now. Being able to take a much smaller device with you to play anywhere, and additionally have the ability to hook it up to a TV whenever you want just feels so much better. Nintendo definitely had the right idea, as did Valve.They made the right moves, and the reason this happened is because the gaming market was quite strongly portables-leaning for some years before that.
People forget this or try to pretend that handheld consoles "aren't consoles", which is thoroughly illogical, but for the longest time, the front-runner in the previous console-generation was not the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 (which eventually took the lead), but the Nintendo 3DS. And its forerunner, the Nintendo DS, is a very close second for the best-selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2, and some figures I remember seeing some years ago (so I'm afraid I don't have them to hand anymore!) suggested that the DS had in fact overtaken the PS2 around 2012 or 2013, if I recall correctly (I remain unsure if they were slightly off-base, or have been buried by folks who don't want to accept that handhelds are consoles and one of them outsold the PS2, hahaha
).Meanwhile, PC sales have been declining since 2012, with these figures from 2016 painting a rather sad picture, along with a note that by 2014, tablets accounted for 40% of the home-computing market.
Quoting: grigiThe 8 year cadence of the switch is too long as it has definitely been losing developer interest in the last two years as it's too weak to support on multiplatform releases anymore.
Quoting: Liam DaweIt's far too long, the Switch was low-powered even at release and it has missed a fair amount of games as it's just not strong enough.But even so, the Switch is very close to becoming the best-selling console of all time globally (it's currently third, with the top three being very close together), with it having been such in some countries for several months now, so it hasn't hurt it that much!
(It's also been more profitable than all of Nintendo's other consoles combined .)Quoting: ToddLMy take on this is that I won't buy the Switch 2 because the Steam Deck still satisfies my gaming without whatever restrictions that Nintendo likes to do with their console. Also, as I've mentioned in the past, I'm not giving anymore money to them for all the crap they've been pulling for decades on and even their games do nothing for me nowadays.They lost me and I will NEVER go back. And that's really saying something, as I used to play some of their games competitively and was extremely invested in their ecosystem - not the sort of customer that you want to drive out, but by God, Nintendo found a way of course, and I'm all the better off for it. Good riddance.
Going by all of the rumours about the Switch 2's specs and Nintendo's own official statement that the Switch's successor is less like a new console and more like a souped-up "next model" of the same product (noteworthily using the very same language that they used to describe the ill-fated Wii U), I don't imagine that we'll need a revised Steam Deck for a long time yet.
Last edited by Pengling on 8 May 2024 at 7:11 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestThe original Switch was announced back in 2015??! O_ONo, it wasn't - that's a bit of gaslighting on Nintendo's part, there. It was announced at the end of 2016. They merely confirmed that a successor to the Wii U was close to completion in 2015.
Time flies.
DoctorJunglist May 8
I haven't even touched my pc (with a dying video card) since i got the original steam deck in 2022 and the steam deck has completely replaced my pc, since i always use it docked for everything in desktop mode. mouse, keyboard, hotass setup with extra power passthrough hubs connected with external drives as well. Maybe a bit more of an investment than "just" a deck but very powerful overall, that is likely being under-utilized to be honest.
The only real additional update i'd love to see valve touch on is for desktop users of the steam deck specifically, we need an updated steam deck docking station with fans so the dock doesn't overheat routinely since i've had to purchase a fan and have it constantly pointed at the back of the dock always running in the background
Last edited by TSpencer on 8 May 2024 at 5:58 pm UTC
mattaraxia May 8
Keeping the specs the same (I know the OLED bumps them a bit, but it's purposefully not a lot faster) for two whole years is an eternity for devices like this. No phone or tablet stays stagnant for more than about a year, and while the Steam Deck is the generic, like the google or the iPad of the space, it does have competitors who will just put out much faster versions of the same thing. Even consoles, other than Nintendo, a "pro" version just a few years in is pretty standard, Valve should fall sort of in between the iPad and PlayStation I figure.
I suspect we'll see an update every 2-2.5 years, basically following AMD's hardware roadmap but usually skipping one iteration.
Also, space to be able to use a bigger NVME stick... like M.2 2260. They have a much better price per storage! ;)
Certainly no need to upgrade just because of that.
I've plenty of games still in my queue from years ago, and they will continue to run well; no need to chase the latest ones.
In the end, not having much time anymore is not all bad.
What I think should be included is improved APU, memory, and screen, VRR, and just more anti-cheat compatibility.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: grigiWhat do you think is a good cadence for updates? 3 years? 4 years? more?It's far too long, the Switch was low-powered even at release and it has missed a fair amount of games as it's just not strong enough.
The 8 year cadence of the switch is too long as it has definitely been losing developer interest in the last two years as it's too weak to support on multiplatform releases anymore.
For the Deck 2, my suggestion there about announcing it late 2026, would mean a release in 2027. Making it about 5 years between Deck and Deck 2 which for a PC platform seems pretty darn reasonable to me, considering the Deck struggles a lot with newer games right now.
These games are not optimized thought and most of these engines are not even multithreaded, and we have a bandwidth issue not a TFLOPS or GFLOPS one.
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