Don't Expect Steam Deck Upgrade for a 'Couple of Years,' Valve Says
A new portable gaming device is apparently not coming down the pipe anytime soon.
Valve's Steam Deck came out in February 2022, and it will be a couple of years before an upgrade for the portable gaming console comes out.
When asked about a possible upgrade, Steam Deck designer Pierre-Loup Griffais told CNBC Thursday that the company has set a performance target that is a "sweet spot" for the hardware to play current PC games and will be stable for a "couple of years."
"So far, I think it's pretty good on the horsepower front," Griffals said.
Griffals added more context to his statement with The Verge, saying Valve doesn't want to increase performance at the cost of battery life.
"I don't anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years," Griffals told the outlet, "but we're still closely monitoring innovations in architectures and fabrication processes to see where things are going there."
While the Steam Deck was far from perfect at release, former CNET editor Dan Ackerman was impressed when he reviewed the machine's progress a year on from its launch.
"Since its initial release in February last year," Ackerman wrote, "the Steam Deck has upgraded or added functionality including better overall performance, smarter cooling and fan speed options, increased compatibility with a massive number of Steam games, better control and sorting of your game library, numerous UI improvements, midgame suspension for quick shutdowns, big improvements to control customization, and better support for expanded microSD storage."
Since the release of the Steam Deck last year, other hardware-makers have released their own handheld gaming consoles, including the Logitech G-Cloud, Asus Rog Ally and Razer Edge. In October, Lenovo will launch its Legion Go device, while Sony will come out with its PlayStation Portal later in the year.