Valve in the present day introduced three new gadgets: the Steam Body, the brand new Steam Machine, and the brand new Steam Controller. However the place is Steam Deck 2?
That is the query we requested Valve software program engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais in a brand new interview on the firm’s workplaces forward of in the present day’s massive announcement. He defined that Valve does have plans to launch an upgraded model of the hand held sooner or later, however is ready for expertise that can enable for efficiency will increase giant sufficient to justify its existence whereas sustaining an inexpensive battery life.
“Clearly Steam Deck isn’t our focus in the present day, nevertheless it echoes what we have mentioned prior to now that we’re very focused on engaged on what’s subsequent for Steam Deck…What we’re seeing is that it is a adequate efficiency improve to make it worthwhile as a standalone product,” Griffais defined.
“We’re not focused on attending to the purpose the place we get 20, 30, and even 50% extra efficiency for a similar battery life. We wish one thing just a little extra tangible than that. So we have been working backwards from advances in silicon and enhancements in structure. I believe we’ve a reasonably good concept of what the subsequent model of Steam Deck will likely be, however proper now we’re the place it stands, which is SoC (System on a Chip). That is actually the subsequent era of efficiency steam decking.β
Griffai’s feedback could come as a disappointment to some given the growing old Steam deck’s capabilities. The hand-held will likely be accessible in February 2022, and the OLED mannequin will likely be accessible in November 2023. Steam Deck is sort of 4 years previous. There is a lengthy checklist of video games you’ll be able to play which were verified with Steam Deck, however some trendy PC video games are troublesome to run correctly. The truth is, in September 2023, Pierre Lou Griffay informed The Verge that the subsequent Steam Deck was not less than a number of years away, main some to hope for the subsequent model in time for this 12 months’s vacation season. Clearly, that is not going to occur.
Based mostly on Griffais’ feedback, the weak level with Steam Deck 2 is battery life, and we will see why. as videogameaddicted’s Steam Deck evaluation He notes that battery life is a “large problem” when working Home windows. “Battery life nonetheless wasn’t nice,” he famous, citing the truth that God of Conflict with default settings used up a completely charged Steam deck in simply 90 minutes, even when working native SteamOS on the gadget.
Nonetheless, there’s a lot for Valve {hardware} followers to get enthusiastic about. The aforementioned Steam Body, next-gen Steam Machine and Steam Controller are right here, and there is a ton of content material devoted to them. Take a look at our useful abstract. In the meantime, this is what you may need to see in Steam Deck 2.
Wesley is videogameaddicted’s Director of Information. Discover @wyp100 on Twitter. Wesley could be reached at wesley_yinpoole@videogameaddicted.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.