Valve says "technology doesn't exist" yet for full Steam Deck 2.0

[John Elden Ring]

Speaking to Eurogamer ahead of today's Steam Deck OLED announcement, Valve engineers discussed the features it is adding to its shinier new handheld model that were not possible to provide back when the original Steam Deck debuted.

The company also said it was working on game projects - plural - right now which were still targeting current Steam Deck hardware performance levels (which remain unchanged in the OLED).

Obviously we'd love to get even more performance in the same power envelope, but that technology doesn't exist yet. That's what I think we'd call a Steam Deck 2.0. The first Steam Deck was the first moment in time where we felt like there was enough GPU performance in a portable form factor that lets you play all your Steam games. We would love for the trend of perf-per-watt to progress rapidly to do that, but it's not quite there yet.

On the upside, this means that Steam developers still have a single perfomance point to hit when ensuring their games run well on the Steam Deck platform, whether the original model or the new OLED.

"There is work like that going on at Valve but we're nsot debuting a piece of content that is tailored to the OLED screen

 

[BroodCorp]

The reason I didn’t get one initially was because I figured they’d have a sequel model out by now. Boy was I wrong.

 

[flaccidsnake]

I like that Valve is treating Deck (1) as a stable performance target for software support. If there was a new Deck every 18 months, developers could ignore it in optimization since there's always another one coming.

Hopefully when the Deck 2 actually is ready, they have an OLED option on day 1.

 

[ethomaz]

I said the same and people said technology exists.
And that is the whole situation that Nintendo is facing now with Switch 2... nVidia has nothing to put in Switch 2 and anything choose right now will be heavy underpowered (yeap it will barely reach PS4 level docked).
At least some big company agrees with me.

I wonder where all these GAFers that constant "told me" that Switch 2 could happen years ago.

 

[Systemshock2023]

There is no hardware powerful and efficient enough to be a generational ñeapover the steam deck. Of anything they should continue with this model for years to come, maybe with a price reduction and sell it in new markets.

A handheld that can play lots of your already owned steam games and run every emulator under the sun still looks like amazing value to me.

 

[historia]

There is no hardware powerful and efficient enough to be a generational ñeapover the steam deck. Of anything they should continue with this model for years to come, maybe with a price reduction and sell it in new markets.

A handheld that can play lots of your already owned steam games and run every emulator under the sun still looks like amazing value to me.

Pretty cheap too. I got one for a bit more than Switch.

Battery sucks but customization is great. Definitely a good niche device

 

[flaccidsnake]

I said the same and people said technology exists.
And that is the whole situation that Nintendo is facing now with Switch 2... nVidia has nothing to put in Switch 2 and anything choose right now will be heavy underpowered (yeap it will barely reach PS4 level docked).
At least some big company agrees with me.

I wonder where all these GAFers that constant "told me" that Switch 2 could happen years ago.

Plus the agenda is massively different between Valve and Nintendo. Valve wants as much of Steam as possible to be playable on Deck. System performance is a side-issue for Nintendo. They're going to decide Switch 2 performance based on their own game requirements and let 3rd party publishers figure out if they want to support it.