Steam Deck 2 won’t release until there’s ‘a worthwhile enough performance upgrade’
Valve has made its stance on the Steam Deck 2 clear
🤔 Valve will not release the Steam Deck 2 until there is a “worthwhile enough performance upgrade”
🚀 The performance jump must be significant (more than 50%) to justify a new standalone product, without sacrificing battery life
🤷 Valve is currently monitoring silicon advancements, but no suitable System on a Chip (SoC) exists yet for a true “next-gen performance” device
📅 A Steam Deck 2 is not anticipated to be possible in the next couple of years
In its announcement video for the new Steam hardware, Valve briefly touched on the Steam Deck, though admitted it wasn’t ready to talk about its successor, the Steam Deck 2, just yet.
In an interview with IGN, Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that a release date for a Steam Deck successor is a long way off, and that the handheld will only arrive when there’s “a worthwhile enough performance upgrade”.
Griffais said: “Obviously the Steam Deck’s not our focus today, but the same things we’ve said in the past where we’re really interested to work on what’s next for Steam Deck. The thing we’re making sure of is that it’s a worthwhile enough performance upgrade to make sense as a standalone product.”
Griffais explained that the jump has to be significant to justify releasing a Steam Deck 2, and that battery life is a big factor.
“We’re not interested in getting to a point where it’s 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life. We want something a little bit more demarcated than that.
“So we’ve been working back from silicon advancements and architectural improvements, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what the next version of Steam Deck is going to be, but right now there’s no offerings in that landscape, in the [System on a Chip] landscape, that we think would truly be a next-gen performance Steam Deck.”
Griffais’s comments align with Valve’s previous stance on the Steam Deck 2. After releasing the Steam Deck OLED in 2023, he told The Verge that changing the performance level “is not something we are taking lightly” and that it doesn’t want to sacrifice power efficiency and battery life.
He went on to say, “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.”
The Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED continue to be popular, despite the aging hardware. The combination of great battery life, ergonomics, SteamOS and a gorgeous OLED screen on the new model makes it an easy choice.
And with streaming solutions like Nvidia GeForce Now or in-home streaming, you can also play far more graphically intensive games via that route. It’s something that will probably be more accessible when the Steam Machine releases, too.
For now, PC gaming fans can look forward to the Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame releasing in early 2026. We’ll just have to wait a little longer for the Steam Deck 2.
Up next: Steam Machine just put the PS5 and Xbox on notice – if Valve nails one more thing
Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.