this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025

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Steam Deck

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New rumor suggests Valve's Steam Deck 2 is much further away than we thought (www.pcguide.com)

submitted 6 days ago by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz

166 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Source is KeplerL2, who is generally considered a reliable source for insider hardware info, particularly on AMD GPU hardware and AMD SoC for consoles.

Previously I would have personally estimated Steam Deck 2 to release mid 2026-early 2027, but the recent info about an upcoming Steam Machine made me think that maybe I should push back that estimate.

Of course even if we assume this is reliable insider info, a lot can change in couple years, so things can definitely change.

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[–] tekeous@beehaw.org 2 points 17 hours ago

I love my Steam Deck OLED and would only really consider an upgrade for things that improve the experience or reliability. Being able to run low and medium-graphics games locally and stream everything else from my PC with Remote Play is awesome.

I’d only want things like:

Hall effect or TMR sticks and triggers
Better battery life(but honestly it’s already great)
1080p, but not at the cost of horsepower or battery
More CPU and GPU power is never a bad thing but I wouldn’t want it at the cost of battery
Cooler and quieter(it gets warm and loud on Forza 5, TABS, Helldivers 2, etc)
Thunderbolt with external GPU support on the dock
More storage is always a good thing and 2230 SSDs pretty much top out at 2TB
The Bluetooth is laggy but I dunno, Bluetooth just kinda always sucks

and bloody hell Valve put the god damn xone driver in your SteamOS so I can use my Xbox wireless receiver without installing the driver after every update

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 175 points 6 days ago (46 children)

I don't know why people are so eager for it, the deck is great, it's a great purchase. I wish I had gotten the OLED, but I'm very very happy with it. I don't see that it needs to be replaced annually or even every 2-3 years. It's like the switch, why not go 4+ years before hardware drives that a new one is possible

[–] the_q@lemmy.zip 105 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Because the capitalist system has trained the consumer to always want new, shiny things.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 37 points 6 days ago

There you go, that's the answer. Can't just be happy with what we have, not even for a couple of years. Time to throw it away, get the new one!

[–] Nima@leminal.space 46 points 6 days ago (4 children)

PC gamers are very excited that there's a handheld PC on the market thats made by Valve, but they don't understand its meant to be a low-power gaming device. its not meant to be a 500+fps massive rig with all the trimmings and fixins.

They are trying to apply their upgrade logic/obsessive consumerism to a device that neither wants nor needs that in its own market.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 33 points 6 days ago (3 children)

This has been a major annoyance I've had too with gamers. It was never meant to play games at 240fps with ultra graphics. It's meant as a way to make "most" games playable on the road. A great low cost entry point, or something to compliment your big gaming rig. I don't need an upgrade because it does what it does great, plays most games on decent settings well enough for the duration of a flight or trip. If you want ultra graphics, you will have to pay ultra prices and probably do a big desktop. Even "Steam Deck 2" will still probably only do 30-45fps games on medium, just newer games will be a bit more playable.

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[–] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 6 days ago

When I first got the steam deck, I thought it was so great and used it all the time; I still do.

I told my wife that I liked it so much that I would buy the next one as soon as it released.

After having it for some time, I realized that all the games I play run on it easily and there is no real need to upgrade.

So, I plan to use this steamdeck until it it stops working. I imagine that will be a while as I’m going to repair it when/if something breaks.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I would like a smaller deck though, the current one is hard to hold if you don't have big man hands

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 13 points 6 days ago

That's a fair ask IMO. Not wanting a newer shinier one, just one that fits you better.

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[–] Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works 19 points 4 days ago

It's actually refreshing that a tech company isn't putting out a barely upgraded yearly iteration just to cash in on fanboys/collectors.

[–] this@sh.itjust.works 30 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don't want a new steam deck. I want a new steam controller and for valve to announce steam machines 2.0

Then we can finally watch windows die a (probably fairly slow, but steady) death.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

New steam controller was leaked earlier this year, and leaks for the new steam machine came out a few days ago. So you'll get your wish pretty soon probably.

[–] tankfox@midwest.social 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

What's really cool is that in a lot of cases you can just load up the game on steam in linux and it just downloads and uses the same proton layers that the deck does. I run arch and in my testing so far it works, hampered by the fact that my test box is a very old a10 amd apu

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[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 76 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nothing has indicated that a new Steam Deck is anywhere near a release or announcement. They said themselves time and time again that they would want a new Steam Deck to be a significant upgrade on the first one.

As long as a really big performance improvement is not possible there won't be a new Steam Deck. And I don't think running Cyberpunk 1080p instead of 800p counts. My bet is that as long as raytracing is as abysmal as it is now on APUs we can't even dream of getting a new Deck.

Think console generations and not smartphone releases.

[–] marlowe221@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago

Not only that, but raw horsepower and battery life are always in a delicate balance in any portable device.

There are practical limitations when it comes to current battery technology. Not to mention heat generation and dissipation that comes with more powerful hardware.

[–] mintiefresh@piefed.ca 52 points 6 days ago (2 children)

As the kids like to say ..... Let em cook.

It'll come out when it's meaningful and a big leap. They've said as much before.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Yup, they’ve straight up said that they’re not interested in iterative upgrades. They said they’d only consider a Deck 2 when the hardware was actually in a place that it would be a meaningful upgrade.

In the meantime, they’re focused on getting devs to actually optimize their games for the SD’s (admittedly aging) hardware. Basically, forcing devs to actually plan for Steam Deck support, instead of just shipping an unoptimized piece of junk out the door and blaming hardware limitations when nothing except the newest cards can play it. There are plenty of games that look gorgeous on the Deck, so we know it’s 100% possible to do so.

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 11 points 5 days ago

The main thing I want, besides higher performance, is higher resolution to increase readability. Do something like what Apple did when they introduced their ultra high resolution monitors - present it as a standard resolution monitor to software, but then let the OS handle stuff like font rendering at full resolution and overlay it.

That way you don't cause a performance hit from games rendering more pixels than what's necessary for a small screen in 3D scenes, but the detail you do need is there to see. They should work with game engine developers and get the OS side support of it upstreamed to the Linux graphics stack (presumably the game mode window manager Gamescope would be the first place to build it into). It would work in parallel to the upscaling algorithm for the rest of the frame buffer.

Stuff like puzzle games and platformers, etc, could even have game engine support for tagging certain assets and object edges and symbols for higher resolution rendering, not just for fonts, so it's easier to see the important things. You could even do stuff like render faces specifically at higher resolution and do the rest at low res with upscaling.

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[–] Sanguine@lemmy.dbzer0.com 60 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Good, there is nothing wrong with the current gen. I want major leaps every few years not marginal improvents every year.

[–] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It is like you don't even care about profits and value the consumer.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I mean, Valve is wildly profitable. On a profit-per-employee basis, they beat out virtually every other company in existence, at a staggering $3.5M in profit earned per employee. The Steam Store is a money-printing machine, and takes very little in upkeep/support staff to stay profitable.

The Steam Deck was never a massive profit-seeking venture for them; It was a way to divest from Microsoft, (who had been rumbling about going the way of Google/Apple and forcing everyone to use their proprietary store, then skimming a portion of all sales made on said store), and to be able to bring the Steam storefront to people who otherwise wouldn’t be using Steam.

The only reason Microsoft backed off of their Microsoft Store idea was because Apple and Google got slapped in the EU, and forced to allow third-party app stores. And by that point, the Steam Deck was already in production, so there wasn’t much point in canceling it. Especially since, as I mentioned earlier, it expands the Steam Store’s reach, which is their real end goal.

[–] ssroxnak@lemmy.world 20 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Didn't Valve say it was gonna be quite a while until they release a Steam Deck 2?

[–] skibidi@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago

They said they would wait until there was a meaningful increase in the power or efficiency they could get out of the form-factor.

The OG deck launched 3.5 years ago, and since then not much has changed. The steam deck GPU has 1.6 TFlop of FP32 compute at 15W. AMD's newest low-power APUs have 2.3 TFlop of FP32 at 28W - nearly double the power for a <50% theoretical performance gain.

A semi-custom APU (that removes the useless AI engine) would compare more favorably, but we are still talking about maybe 20% more performance, not exactly game changing for the cost.

[–] peetabix@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago

That's what I thought too. Add the fact that Valve time != normal time.

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[–] MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world 24 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Honestly, for me I don't really need a new steam deck. The OLED deck is almost perfect already. I don't know that a ton more processing power is necessary for me. Whenever I've wanted to play a more demanding game on my deck I stream it from either my desktop gaming rig, my ps5, or from Geforce Now. (Though i know obviously not everyone is going to have those luxuries) The only thing I think I would REALLY want would be a WiFi chip that doesn't shit the bed if it doesn't like the router your using.

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[–] tiberius@lemmy.ca 28 points 6 days ago (9 children)

I can wait for 2028, but how about giving us a Steam Controller 2? Take the screen out of a steam deck and call it a day.

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[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 26 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Why is everyone in a hurry? What's wrong with the one we have? I have the 64GB LCD one (OG one) and it's fucking flawless still. Yeah, the storage is annoying, but all of my games play no problem. So, what's the issue? Also, do y'all realize how fucking insane the ergonomics on this one? It genuinely made me not look at any other device. Please let them take their time so we can get an even nicer device.

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I guess it’s consumerism and people always wanting more.

I’d be happy if the Steam Deck 2 wasn’t released until 2028 as I’ve just got my used LCD in 2025.

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[–] Muscle_Meteor@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Oh.. I kinda hope so.. I just ordered a steam deck yesterday.

I meant to check this specifically before i ordered and i completely forgot

[–] Erasmus@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

I got the OLED when it came out and it was the best purchase I made when it came to ‘consoles’

I don’t think I have turned my PS5 on more than a half dozen times since I got my Deck and that was just to play games like Beatsaber with the family.

The deck just offers way too much flexibility for games not to mention you can take it anywhere.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 5 days ago

You're gonna love it

[–] Linktank@lemmy.today 23 points 6 days ago

Take your time Valve.

[–] yaroto98@lemmy.world 22 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This feels about right. I have an OLED and I got it about 6mo after it came out. I'm rocking it most days, and it doesn't feel End Of Life. But I could see maybe wanting a new one in a few years.

[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It will never be "end of life". There are retro consoles that people are buying just for running SNES or GameBoy Advance games. Even those are perfectly functional for their purpose. Even if the Steam Deck got hard locked to only run games released up till 2025, it will still have enduring value. EoL can mean the battery is too degraded, but the battery is replaceable.

A "soft EoL" will realistically come when much much faster hardware is cheaper, the Steam Deck is out of production and it starts struggling to play even indie games. At this point, buying a secondhand Deck for £100 is still going to be a bargain and get recommended for emulators, retro gamers and patient gamers.

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[–] network_switch@lemmy.ml 15 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Good choice. As easy to forget as it is, that'll be the 8th year of the PS5. Probably will benefit from similar supply chains as the rumored PS6/PS5 handheld and whatever MS does. Main shame to me is for people buying a Steam Deck and being stuck with regular sdxc microSD. microSD express or that Biwin mini SSD would be real nice

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[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

We? You, maybe. I just got the thing a year ago.

[–] southernbrewer@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (7 children)

Maybe if they could make the steam deck 1 actually available in aus/nz first so we can actually purchase them instead of everyone just having nintendo switches idk just a thought

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[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

…who the hell thought it was anytime soon? they work on valve time. when they can shift a paradime they do, when it won’t they do something else

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

I don’t know who those “we” people are but benchmarks have repeatedly shown that in low wattage situations the performance difference between Deck and the newer handhelds is negligible, so this prediction is hardly a surprise IMO.

[–] einlander@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The Steam Deck is the minimum standard spec that games aim for to get the verified tag. Move it higher and people will have to upgrade everything.

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[–] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 days ago (5 children)

I don't think they'll release a new one until they make the leap to an ARM processor like Apple did when leaving x86 behind. But that means they'll have to make x86 emulator that doesn't torch the battery. As it is, Proton was an enormous undertaking and it has resulted in a fantastic product. I believe they call pull it off again and we'll get 20 hours of battery life with better performance.

But that'll take a few years. I'm in no rush to spend another $600+.

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