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Valve has reaffirmed its commitment to the Steam Deck hardware, stating that it’s aiming for the true successor to be “a generational increase.”
An OLED edition of the handheld PC launches this week, and Valve staff told Axios the company is keen to continue building on this.
When asked why previous hardware initiatives from Valve have ultimately been dropped, hardware designer Yazan Aldehayyat said those devices achieved their goals and the company moved on from them. But that’s not necessarily going to be the case with Steam Deck.
“We do think that a Steam Deck 2.0 is necessary,” he said. “Steam Deck OLED was necessary. We feel like there’s a roadmap ahead of us.”
While Valve has not shared specific sales figures, the company said Steam Deck has sold “multiple millions” since launch. Despite a Steam hardware survey showing that just 1% of the marketplace’s users have a Deck, designer Lawrence Yang said the company is “very happy” with the device’s sales.
Regarding the Steam Deck 2, Yang said Valve “really [wants] it to be a generational increase,” but noted that the chips currently available that would be necessary for a more powerful device aren’t suited to a handheld.
His comments echo those of Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais, who said back in September that a second-generation Steam Deck is unlikely to launch before 2025.
“In the next two or three years, we’re confident that something will be what we would consider appropriate for a proper Steam Deck 2 device.”
In the meantime, Valve is focused on this week’s OLED launch, which Yang describes as the “definitive first-generation Steam Deck.”
