With Valve's Steam Deck technically available for about 10 months now (usually about two months), customers are increasingly wondering what Valve might have in store for the inevitable portable "version 2.0" of handheld PC gaming. While some gamers are looking for a more powerful "Steam Deck Pro," hardware designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais say battery life and screen quality are more likely "pain points" they hope to address in the new version.
The news comes from an extensive interview with The Verge, in which two Valve designers hinted that there might be value in keeping the same base spec target for future hardware. "The same games can now be played on all Steam platforms, and our goal is to give users an idea of what level of performance they can expect when playing a game, and give developers an idea of what to aim for - there's a lot of value in having That spec," Griffais told The Verge.
Griffais added: "I think we will choose to keep one power level for a longer period of time and only change the power level when there is a significant gain."
Right now, it's hard to argue that putting a more powerful processor in the new Steam platform will give users a "big win." There are currently over 6,000 Steam games listed as "Verified" or "Playable" on Steam Deck, meaning they have little trouble running at least 30fps at the system's 1200×800 resolution. It's not just about validating legacy titles, either; many recent AAA releases like Elden Ring, Spider-Man: Remastered, and Death Stranding: Director's Cut have been fully Deck Verified.
Of course, a higher quality Steam Deck Pro might be able to get higher resolutions or frame rates from some of these games. But as long as there are plenty of games in playable form on the hardware, Valve seems less interested in improving performance and more interested in extending battery life. We also don't mind if maintaining the specs means the new Steam platform can be thinner and/or lighter than the current clunky version, but that's just wishful thinking on our part.
Update past, present and future
Elsewhere in The Verge's interview, Valve designers revealed some secret internal changes they've made to a recently made Steam deck unit. This includes changes to the adhesive that holds the battery in place, which should make it easier to remove and replace, addressing an issue spotted by iFixit's teardown experts.
The whining fans from Delta Electronics in some older Steam Deck units have also been replaced in newer units with thicker foam padding fans, which you can buy and install yourself if you have the noisy version. The latest Steam Deck unit also improves the feel of the soft Steam and quick access buttons next to the screen, the designers say.
Valve also plans to introduce additional Steam Deck features via software updates in the coming months. These include the ability to select a new Bluetooth profile/codec to reduce wireless audio latency and use a Bluetooth microphone to get started. Steam Deck users may soon be able to share power profiles as well, just as they are currently able to share custom control profiles for specific games to maximize battery life and performance through crowdsourcing.
However, Steam Deck's "trippy" dynamic cloud sync feature - which allows you to resume games elsewhere immediately after the Steam Deck has been hibernated - will still be implemented by individual developers. The designer said there are no plans to require such support as part of Valve's Deck Verified program.
However, the most interesting teaser in the interview concerns the possibility that Valve might revive the defunct Steam Machines franchise. This could mean that new third-party mini PCs designed to connect to TVs now run Steam Deck's new and improved version of SteamOS. While Steam Machines' initial efforts failed for a number of reasons, they could be even more successful now if they combined the much-improved game compatibility and feature set that has proven so successful on Steam Deck.