In releasing the upgraded Steam Deck OLED, Valve has specified that the brand new and improved handheld ought to nonetheless be thought-about a part of the primary technology of Steam Deck. Answering the query of after we can count on to see a real Steam Deck 2, Valve has mentioned that it does not count on to supply a brand new iteration of the system for no less than a few years.

That reply comes all the way down to accessible know-how, with Valve engineers explaining that the tech to considerably enhance on the present Steam Deck simply does not exist but. Talking to Eurogamer, Valve {hardware} engineer Yazan Aldehayyat mentioned, “Clearly we might like to get much more efficiency in the identical energy envelope, however that know-how does not exist but. That is what I feel we might name a Steam Deck 2.0.”

“The primary Steam Deck was the primary second in time the place we felt like there was sufficient GPU efficiency in a conveyable type issue that permits you to play all of your Steam video games,” Aldehayyat contiued. “We’d love for the development of perf-per-watt to progress quickly to try this, however it’s not fairly there but.”

Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais additionally spoke to The Verge on the subject of the potential for a Steam Deck 2, explaining that Valve does not need to enhance efficiency at the price of battery life and effectivity.

“It is necessary to us that the Deck gives a hard and fast efficiency goal for builders, and that the message to clients is straightforward, the place each Deck can play the identical video games,” Griffais defined about Valve’s strategy to {hardware} generations. “As such, altering the efficiency degree is just not one thing we’re taking frivolously, and we solely need to accomplish that when there’s a vital sufficient enhance available.

“We additionally don’t desire extra efficiency to return at a big value to energy effectivity and battery life,” Griffais continued. “I do not anticipate such a leap to be attainable within the subsequent couple of years, however we’re nonetheless intently monitoring improvements in architectures and fabrication processes to see the place issues are going there.”

For now, the Steam Deck OLED is the largest improve gamers can get their fingers on in the intervening time, providing a big enhance to each battery life and the standard of its show, amongst different upgrades. The new Steam Deck will open for pre-orders on November 16, with units to start transport within the days following. The unique Steam Deck may even get a minimize in value after the brand new mannequin is launched.