When Steam Deck was released in February, we named it our new favorite console. For the first time, there was one appealing feature: the ability to play games in your Steam library on the go, via a handset with the processing power of a gaming PC. Valve has since sent out more than 90 updates to the Steam Deck, fixing bugs and improving the player experience. Now the real question is what updates Steam Deck owners can expect in the future.
Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais detailed what a second-gen Steam Deck might look like, along with the features they prioritized. They stated that they will focus on improving the screen and battery life.
Valve, Steam Deck “a multi-generational product” named and “To create new versions that will be more open and capable than the first version of Steam Deck” He said he was planning. Yang and Griffais said improving the display and battery life are priorities in future hardware revisions.
As for potential power upgrades, Griffais pointed to the benefits of keeping a consistent target for developers, suggesting that at least the next Steam Deck model won’t offer improved performance. “I think we’re going to choose to keep the single performance level a little bit longer, and we’ll only look at changing the performance level when there’s a significant gain to be made,” he said.
According to Yang, Steam Deck updates currently being worked on fall into two categories: “Things we want to fix and things we still want to do.”
Currently the battery of the Steam Deck is difficult to access. In the current design it comes built-in and cannot be opened. Yang, Valve’s “a change in the geometry of the adhesive that will make it easier to loosen the battery” He said he was working on it. Since batteries tend to wear out more quickly compared to other hardware components, making it easier to access and replace the battery would be a welcome update.
In addition, Valve is working on a feature to adjust the audio mix between various apps; this will allow players to mute a game to make it easier for them to hear their friends on Discord. Valve would be interested in adding mobile games to the Deck, but Griffais and Yang noted that it would be important to communicate to players that these games are touchscreen-only experiences.
Now that Valve has had some success on the hardware front, it has also made some announcements about the sequel to the unique but discontinued Steam Controller. “We want to make that happen,” Yang said, but added that the company’s current focus is Deck.