Ever since the introduction of the Steam Deck, many different companies have created alternative portable PCs to compete with the handheld. With this much competition, it’d be natural to think that Valve would introduce a new Deck version to the market. However, it doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards for the company, as recent statements show.
In a talk with CNBC, Valve coder Pierre-Loup Griffais recently talked about how the Steam Deck isn’t going to receive a new iteration just yet. He explained that “changing the performance level” of Steam Deck isn’t something Valve is taking lightly. Added to this is the fact that Valve is currently “working with developers on future releases, and we’re monitoring the feedback there, but so far, I think it has been pretty good on the horsepower front.”
This sentiment was expanded upon in a later talk with The Verge. In it, it was heavily hinted that the sequel to the gaming PC might be a long time away from now because Valve is waiting for a more significant leap in terms of performance. “[We] 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.”
With recent changes in the landscape of mobile technology, it certainly isn’t strange to see Valve waiting to have a beefier mobile processor for the next iteration of the Steam Deck. After all, the gaming industry was hit with the shock reveal of an iPhone capable of playing Resident Evil 4 Remake. So, seeing a Steam Deck sequel capable of running some of the latest and high-demanding games in 2026 or beyond would be a dream for many players.
