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Steam Deck 2: Valve Hints at Future of Handheld Gaming PCs
Valve has stoked up excitement among the portable PC gaming community, and other techy gadget lovers, with the publication of its new free eBook about the Steam Deck. The eBook provides a kind of potted history plus a vision statement for the Steam Deck, ahead of the device’s launch in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Among the highlights in the 52 page booklet is the tacit confirmation that there will be a Steam Deck 2 on the way (and perhaps more), as GamingonLinux highlighted. Also those who want to use the latest SteamOS versions on their PCs will be pleased that a generic installer has been mentioned again.
Most of our readers will be very well aware of Steam Deck. Moreover, its unique position in the handheld PC gaming market is well established, and set it out as a pioneering device in this field. At the same time, PC enthusiasts and gamers are pretty wary of v1.0 products, so a Steam Deck 2 will unlock a lot of pent-up excitement and demand.
On the very last page of Valve’s Steam Deck eBook, it shares some of its vision for the future of gaming handhelds and SteamOS. Headlined “The Future: more Steam Decks, more SteamOS,” this concluding section makes it very clear there will be a Steam Deck 2, or whatever it might be called, and probably further iterations. Valve can be pretty certain it has a hit on its hands here, after previous hardware misfires, and it looks set to ride the wave.
There aren’t many real clues about the direction of travel for a Steam Deck successor in the eBook. Nothing as interesting as a discussion of form factor, tech specs etc were shared. Instead, Valve said that it will “follow up on this product with improvements and iterations to hardware and software, bringing new versions of Steam Deck to market.” PC enthusiasts always appreciate open platforms, and Valve mentions that it wants the successor to the Steam Deck to be “even more open.”
We already know that Valve is working to prepare a generic SteamOS distribution, so anyone with a PC desktop or laptop can get the latest version of this gaming focused OS up and running. However, it is good to see Valve reconfirmed this initiative, so we know it is one of the top tasks on its check list.
