Steam Deck is a handheld game console independently developed by Valve, the parent company of the Steam platform. It can play large-scale AAA games anytime and anywhere. It is a very attractive selling point for players. Therefore, the release of Steam Deck caused a sensation in the player community. , for a period of time when it was first launched, it was almost “hard to find”. At the same time, Steam Deck has also led to the craze of Windos handheld consoles. Many manufacturers have followed suit and launched similar products. Even many well-known manufacturers have followed this trend, such as ROG AllY or Logictech G Cloud.
Although Valve founder Gabe Newell has previouslyinterviewWe’ve made it clear that there will be a Steam Deck 2, but it doesn’t seem like they plan to do anything about it anytime soon. Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge that they want to update when there is a significant improvement in performance, but they also don’t want to sacrifice battery life for performance.
Here is Pierre-Loup Griffais’ full talk:
The most important thing to us is that Steam Deck can provide game developers with a fixed performance. The message we want to tell consumers is also very simple, that is, every Steam Deck can play the same games. Therefore, changing performance levels is something that must be viewed with caution, and we only do so if performance can be significantly improved. At the same time, we do not want performance improvements to come at the expense of power efficiency and battery life. I don’t expect technology to improve by such a leap in the next few years, but we still pay close attention to innovative architectures and processes to understand the future direction.
Valve’s reasons for being so cautious actually make sense, especially when it comes to battery life. As early as more than 30 years ago, the story of the first-generation GameBoy successfully reversing its performance disadvantages by relying on battery life tells us that for handheld consoles, nothing is more important than battery life.
But as Steam Deck started this wave, the performance of Windos handheld consoles launched by various manufacturers has become more and more improved. Even Apple has shown its ambitions for the 3A game market in the latest iPhone 15 Pro. In addition, various The AAA masterpieces of each game manufacturer are increasingly demanding performance. I wonder if Valve can really endure until 2026?
