Valve's marketing booklet confirms a Steam Deck 2 is inevitable

[Daniel Sims]

Forward-looking: Speculation over a successor to the Steam Deck has circulated ever since Valve launched its handheld PC. The company gave the strongest confirmation yet this week that it plans to follow up its portable hardware, but without saying when.

On Thursday, Valve released a booklet about the Steam Deck that touches on the company's plans for future versions of the device. It didn't provide many specifics, but Valve isn't stopping at just one Deck.

Valve wrote the marketing booklet to explain the company's and Steam Deck's design goals to audiences in Asian territories like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It contains a concise description of Valve, Steam, and the Steam Deck for audiences who are possibly less familiar with them. It is available for download in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

The final page looks toward the future, calling the Steam Deck a "multi-generational product line." Valve explicitly confirms rumors of Steam Deck successors that emerged earlier this year. The company plans to improve hardware and software in future iterations while ensuring that subsequent Steam Decks can still access the same software and games as the inaugural unit.

"Steam Deck represents the first in a new category of Steam handheld gaming PCs. In the future, Valve will follow up on this product with improvements and iterations to hardware and software, bringing new versions of Steam Deck to market. Like the original, and like all PCs, these future products will continue to provide access to the same Steam game catalog that gamers already know and love."

In March, Valve boss Gabe Newell said he interpreted the success of the Steam Deck's most expensive model as evidence customers were interested in higher-end variants. He also expressed hopes for VR capability in a future model.

June rumors suggested AMD is working on an APU that could be the successor to the Steam Deck's "Van Goh" processor. It would feature faster RAM and efficiency gains from AMD's upcoming RDNA 3 GPU architecture. Information about the chip suggests a release toward the end of 2023 or later, which is fine. The current Steam Deck is nowhere near meeting its demand, so Valve is unlikely to replace it soon.

The Steam Deck isn't the only or the first handheld gaming PC, although its popularity may have stirred up the nascent sector. GamePad Digital (GPD) recently unveiled two new models of its Win series: the GPD Win Max 2, which looks like a mini laptop with analog sticks, and the GPD Win 4, looking more like a Sony PSP with a keyboard. The Max 2 features some of the same chips as the Steam Deck but is a bit more robust. It could eventually support Valve's Steam OS. Other options like the Ayaneo 2 and AYN Loki Zero have also emerged.

Aside from the handheld units, Valve also reiterated its plans to spread the Steam Deck's improvements to traditional PCs. Its user interface will form the basis of a new version of Steam's Big Picture mode. Soon, Chromebooks will also be able to play games using a Steam Deck-derived compatibility layer.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95779-valve-marketing-booklet-asian-markets-confirms-steam-deck.html

 

[defaultluser]

You remember when valve promised 3 major vr titles? and launched Index off the momentum of Alyx?

three and a half years later, Index is all but abandoned by Valve(the best they can do is tack it on to something as under-powered as a Deck version 4.0 om 2033!)

anytime valve gets a new hotness up its ***, it completely abandons the last one; expect the same from this one after sales hit a wall versus all the zen 4 portables announced next year

 

[passwordistaco]

You remember when valve promised 3 major vr titles?

Everybody knows Valve can't count to 3.

 

[defaultluser]

Everybody knows Valve can't count to 3.

and if they were really serious about deck 2, they would have had actual specs out !

 

[poltevo]

It was clear when all the preorders came in last year that Valve would make this into a multi generational product. I’m not sure about the cadence, as Valve doesn’t want to fragment it’s small ecosystem and the cost of components isn’t exactly falling. Regardless, there will be Deck 2 in a while and maybe Deck+ sooner.

How this plays into VR is probably with a compute RDNA3/4 module, rather the a deck device running VR. Valve will certainly come out with a sequel to Index at some point, but as with Index it will be a niche high-end device designed to push the limits of consumer VR. There is no need for Valve to create low-end PCVR headsets when the likes Meta and Pico can do that much better.

VR and handheld are very different markets and have very different technical requirements. Handhelds can tap into an existing games library much easier, where VR has a higher bar for development and hardware requirements. Portables are a bigger deal for Valve at the moment because they play into the strengths of Steam.