Valve says next generation of Steam Deck is still 2-3 years away

When Valve debuted the Steam Deck back in 2022, the company entered the realm of handheld gaming and appealed to a new niche of customers. Suddenly, the desktop games that Valve is known for became available on the go at the cost of a few hundred dollars. Although the Steam Deck hit the market fairly recently, speculation has run rampant as to when Valve intends to launch the next generation of the handheld. Now, the company is providing more clarity.

While promoting the upcoming launch of the OLED Steam Deck, Valve product designer Lawrence Yang confirmed that the next generation of the handheld won’t debut for at least another 2 years (via Tom’s Hardware). That being said, the Steam Deck 2 will have “next generation” performance. At the moment, the existing model relies on an AMD platform with microarchitecture dating back to 2019 and 2020 RDNA 2 graphics. It also has a 40Whr battery, which can provide upwards of 8 hours of power, but has been a key criticism among first-gen Steam Deck owners. Valve told the media that company executives are reportedly happy with the OLED model — happy enough to wait a few years for Yang and his team to refine the next-gen Steam Deck.

Source: Steam

This should come as good news to gamers who already enjoy the original Steam Deck. While speaking to Polygon, Yang also noted that the second iteration is not expected to be the last — he is looking forward to developing many more models of the Steam Deck in the future. If the handheld has become your go-to, this might be exactly what you want to hear. However, you shouldn’t expect to see Valve release a new generation of the device every year. Both Yang and Valve hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat clarified that the goal isn’t to follow other tech company models in terms of annual releases.