Valve gave us the strongest wording yet that a Steam Deck 2 is actually real, although it's still clearly going to be some time away before there's enough of an upgrade.
Recently we had the news that the Steam Deck is finally going to release in Australia, and so now Valve have another market opened up for future hardware launches. So, a few Australian websites managed to get Valve to open up a little to discuss the future and it's sounding good.
Speaking to Reviews.org Australia here's what Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang said about a Steam Deck 2:
It is important to us, and we’ve tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence. 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. But it is something that we’re excited about and we’re working on.
Also mentioned in the interview is how they really love seeing all the devices from other companies, even if they're not a fan of the constant device refreshes. There's plenty of other good stuff mentioned in the full interview so be sure to go give it a read.
It's not exactly the freshest news though if you've been following along, since I previously covered Valve's little handbook for the Asia launch, that did make it seem pretty clearly like more was planned. Still, Valve reiterating it so strongly is a great sign.
Until then we've still got plenty to look forward to like the final release of SteamOS 3.6 (it's in Beta) which will bring another big lot of system improvements. And, whatever this ARM64 and Android stuff is for (likely a new VR set).
Quoting: MohandevirTalking about the Steam Controller... I did some troubleshooting with my Steam Link hardware vs Steam link app on Nvidia Shield... I connected my 8bitdo Ultimate 2C with the 2.4ghz dongle, on the Steam Link hardware (works perfectly, even the rumble works)... I wanted to sync my SC via Bluetooth and pushed the wrong button combo (Steam + A)... My SC synced itself to the 8bitdo dongle and is working properly... Whaaaat?!That's.... Unexpected 😳
Sorry, not really on topic, but I had to share it.
Any more powerful hardware released after that (and any custom built PCs and any miniPCs and any laptops with comparable hardware or better) will enjoy "even better" performance, higher graphics settings, etc... and will benefit from the baseline being low.
The minute Valve releases Steam Deck 2 there is a truckload of devs that will no longer try to get their games optimized for the original Steam Deck, only the new model, because it's so much easier.
Valve created an optional but very enticing target for PC gaming devs, instead of red-taping their store in mandatory norms and contracts like consoles do. They can't pull the rug under PC game devs and start forcing stuff onto them, so this was areally smart move and probably the only viable move to manouver PC game devs into compliance without a fight they couldn't win. It's an uber-carrot without a stick.
Last edited by Marlock on 19 October 2024 at 11:22 pm UTC
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