Valve Exec Suggests It Will Be 'A Couple of Years' Before Steam Deck 2 Arrives

Steam Deck
(Image credit: Valve)

Valve intends the Steam Deck to be a "a stable target for a couple of years," said the firm's Pierre-Loup Griffais during an interview with CNBC at the Tokyo Game Show (h/t GamingOnLinux). If we take Griffais' words at face value, we shouldn't expect a Steam Deck 2 handheld to launch until 2025.

The CNBC interview covered a range of topics. Still, the underlying theme of the questions was to assess how Valve feels about its successful Steam Deck today and how it hopes to hold or grow market share in the face of the advances from competitors in the future.

On the first question, Griffais referred to the Steam Deck's "special sauce." This largely consists of the intuitive gaming-centric SteamOS and how tightly it is woven with the hardware. Despite its pick-up-and-play UI, Griffais was keen to point out that the underlying OS was capable and flexible for users who wish to delve deeper and customize things.

Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais at the TGS (center) (Image credit: Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais)

On a similar theme of being positive about SteamOS, Griffais highlighted the recent SteamOS 3.5 update. Indeed, the update has been warmly welcomed by fans of the platform for introducing performance boosts, new display settings (e.g. VRR and HDR), system enhancements, and more.

Moving onto the questions about the Steam Deck holding or growing market share, Griffais discussed continuing to build up the device's retail presence and worldwide distribution. CNBC specifically referred to the "console cycle" and whether the Steam Deck will follow this cycle or not. Not surprisingly to us, Griffais ruled out PC-like upgrades to the current Steam Deck. So, yes, it will have to be replaced like a typical home console when gamers, or PC games, outgrow it. At this point, the Valve developer said the performance of the Steam Deck now will remain "a stable target for a couple of years."

Lastly, Griffais sought to keep talk of rivalry to a minimum. He was aware of handheld PCs arriving with perhaps better specs but told CNBC that "we are all in this together," which hints at some more hardware/software collaborations coming up.

(Image credit: Valve)

Just because Valve has now effectively ruled out any Steam Deck 2 for a couple of years, it still needs to get fingers in other hardware pies. Earlier this month, spatial computing enthusiast Brad Lynch highlighted that Valve had just put some new hardware through South Korea's radio certification regulators. The "low power wireless device" had a model codename of "1030", and some tech tipsters reckon it is a standalone VR headset… Whatever it might be, nothing like this has yet been revealed at the Tokyo Game Show, which runs until Sunday.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • ezst036
    Valve is making a ton of investments in the software Linux-side, from drivers to compilers and more. There is still more performance to be gotten out of the Deck 1.

    - all of which investments will payoff when the Deck 2 finally arrives. BTW.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    honestly thats good.

    a handheld shouldnt be like a phone & get new model so often.

    that way the improvements are large and worth the $.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    And that will be the end of the Steam Deck, since Valve doesn't count to 3.

    Maybe the third iteration will have another name instead?

    Same with the Index 2, if they call it that :D

    Regards.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    -Fran- said:
    And that will be the end of the Steam Deck, since Valve doesn't count to 3.

    Maybe the third iteration will have another name instead?

    Same with the Index 2, if they call it that :D

    Regards.
    Steam Deck: Alyx
    Reply
  • drtweak
    I love my steam deck. I mainly use it for older games, not so much new ones. Lot of emulators, played all of the Tomb Raiders and on Dead Space 3 right now and only on DS3 have i had some issues but nothing i can't deal with. I pay it for the game play not the graphics so I'm fine with that. Even though there are now others that are more powerful, i feel like with them running windows it might eat up more resources. I do have my dual booted, but i've gone into windows like twice and just didn't like it. It has its spot in the mobile gaming.

    The only thing I do wish is for a brighter screen. Thats about it.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    salgado18 said:
    Steam Deck: Alyx
    Steam Deck 2: Episode 2
    Reply
  • Giroro
    Look, At the end of the day, it's simply impossible for a tech company to develop new hardware when their CEO lives in New Zealand. It's just science.

    It's never been done before, and I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Unexpected albeit disappointing news though this is exactly why I didn't buy a Steam Deck in the first place. It's probably a shrewd business move as Microsoft hasn't really cared to optimize Windows and AMD's boosting behaviors leave a lot to be desired.
    Reply
  • williamcll
    They should instead make the Deck the minimum hardware requirements so publishers can't just make unoptimized trash.
    Reply
  • ekio
    -Fran- said:
    And that will be the end of the Steam Deck, since Valve doesn't count to 3.

    Maybe the third iteration will have another name instead?

    Same with the Index 2, if they call it that :D

    Regards.
    As the joke was already made, I state that I agree: HL3 IS HL ALYX.
    Reply