Why We Still Haven't Gotten A Steam Deck 2

GAMING NEWS

Valve unveiled several new hardware products this week, including the Steam Machine, which bears a resemblance to the Nintendo GameCube. One major omission, however, was a Steam Deck 2—and Valve has now explained why it hasn’t been announced.

In a new interview with IGN following the hardware showcase, software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais confirmed that a next-generation Steam Deck is planned, but the technology required to deliver Valve’s goals simply isn’t available yet.

“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,” Griffais said. “The thing we're making sure of is that it's a worthwhile enough performance upgrade to make sense as a standalone product.”

According to Griffais, Valve isn’t aiming for a modest improvement or a slightly better battery—as noted in GameSpot’s Steam Deck review. Instead, Valve wants a truly meaningful leap in power, something that justifies calling the device a Steam Deck successor. The issue is that current Systems on a Chip (SoCs) don’t yet meet the bar Valve has set.

“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,” Griffais added. “We want something a little bit more demarcated than that. We have a good sense of what the next Steam Deck should be, but today there are no SoC offerings that would qualify as a next-gen performance Steam Deck.”

This mirrors what Griffais told The Verge in 2023, where he said Valve was waiting for a “significant enough increase” in performance technology—suggesting a Steam Deck 2 wouldn’t arrive until 2026.

“We also don't want more performance to come at a significant cost to power efficiency and battery life,” he said at the time. “I don’t anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years, but we’re closely monitoring innovations in architectures and fabrication processes.”

Valve released a revised Steam Deck with an OLED screen in late 2023, keeping the same performance but improving the display. A full Steam Deck 2, however, appears dependent on future hardware advancing to match Valve’s ambitions.

While fans may be waiting a bit longer for a new handheld, Valve’s newly announced products are arriving soon. The Steam Controller, Steam Frame, and Steam Machine are all set to ship in early 2026, and although pricing hasn’t been confirmed, hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said affordability remains a priority for Valve.

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