Valve has previously confirmed that it's committed to the Steam Deck as a multi-generational product. But will the second-gen Steam Deck come with a considerable performance leap? Maybe don't count on it, says Valve.
Steam Deck designers Pierre Loup-Griffais and Lawrence Yang sat down with The Verge for a wide-ranging interview about everything related to the Steam Deck. Among the things that were discussed, the Valve designers talked about current efforts to improve the Steam Deck hardware that's being shipped to customers. But one of the bigger takeaways was that the company wouldn't be necessarily looking at a performance bump on a second-gen product.
Both designers agreed that the two shortcomings that a sequel needs to address are the screen and the battery life. When pressed about whether the product would perform better, they were non-committal, saying that Valve is weighing whether to keep its hardware consistent. Griffais said that the company values that all Steam Deck customers can play the same games, and that Valve might not look for a performance upgrade unless it's a dramatic improvement.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Nintendo's Switch OLED notably came with few hardware improvements, other than the screen. Presumably, a second-gen Steam Deck would be an upgrade within this line. The Steam Deck can already play a lot of games, including some of the most popular Steam titles, but eventually, it'll need an upgrade to keep up --- PC games are constantly evolving, and in the process, they require better specs. Some games are starting to recommend 32GB of RAM.
Valve also answered other pressing questions about the Steam Deck. For starters, the company said that the current product might never be "stable" like a regular console is, as Valve is constantly updating its product and making it better. This not only extends to software, but also hardware, as it takes into account user criticism to improve what's inside of the console with revisions. After burning criticism by iFixit for its hard-to-remove battery, the company has since been working on new hardware revisions to make it easier to pry out and replace.
If you've been waiting on a second-gen Steam Deck with better performance, you might as well just grab the current model.
Source: The Verge