Steam Deck 2 is coming in Valve’s own sweet time

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Valve has made no secret about its intentions to create a Steam Deck 2. The portable console is insanely popular and revitalized the market, which was dominated by Nintendo.

Numerous big-name brands soon released their own portable consoles capable of running PC games, like the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. 

In 2023, the hardware of the original Steam Deck pales in comparison to the new top-tier hardware-packed handheld consoles, and we believe the time has come for the second generation console, the Steam Deck 2. 

And what a coincidence, the Steam Deck’s developers also think the same. Also, unlike other console manufacturers like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, they are not afraid to talk about Steam Deck 2 and the future they have planned for it. 

The bad news is that Valve says a new Steam Deck may be years away. 

When is the Steam Deck 2 coming? 

Steam Deck developer Pierre-Loup Griffais recently spoke to The Verge and discussed the plans for a new console.

And according to the developer, 2025 is the soonest we can expect one.

According to Griffais, battery life concerns are the main reason for the delay. He wants the next Steam Deck to have a performance bump without draining the battery.

Here’s the full quote he furnished to The Verge:

It’s important to us that the Deck offers a fixed performance target for developers, and that the message to customers is simple, where every Deck can play the same games. As such, changing the performance level is not something we are taking lightly, and we only want to do so when there is a significant enough increase to be had. We also don’t want more performance to come at a significant cost to power efficiency and battery life. I don’t anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years, but we’re still closely monitoring innovations in architectures and fabrication processes to see where things are going there.

Battery life is the Achilles heel of the Steam Deck

While the original Steam Deck was impressive, its biggest issue was its shorter-than-advertised battery life. Its eight hours of battery life looks good on paper but lasts about two hours with default settings.

Even last year, also speaking to The Verge, Griffais mentioned that battery life was a top priority for the next Steam Deck.

That said, even if Steam Deck 2 is years away from its release, nothing’s stopping Valve from slightly improving the existing Steam Deck so it can get along better with the new players.

It would be similar to what Nintendo did with the Switch—refreshed the console with slightly better battery life and a new display.

The only thing is that Valve has a history of waiting until its hardware is ready, not for minor refreshes. We’ll not hold our breath waiting for the Steam Deck 2.

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