Customers are becoming curious about what Valve may have in store for an inevitable "version 2.0" of the convenient PC gaming portable now that it has been technically accessible for roughly 10 months (and has been widely available for about two months).
Hardware designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais claim that battery life and screen quality are the most likely "pain issues" they'd like to solve in a future edition, despite the fact that some players could be looking for a more powerful "Steam Deck Pro."
That information comes from a thorough interview with The Verge, in which the two Valve designers mentioned that it could be advantageous to maintain the same minimum spec objective for future gear.
There is a lot of value in having just one spec, Griffis told The Verge, "right now, the fact that all the Steam Decks can play the same games and that we have one target for users to understand what kind of performance level to expect when you're playing and for developers to understand what to target."
Griffis continued, "I think we'll decide to stick with the current performance level for a little while longer and only consider modifying the performance level when there is a meaningful gain to be had.
It's challenging to claim that giving users a "substantial gain" by installing more potent processors in a new Steam Deck would be the case right now.
Currently, well over 6,000 Steam games are classified as "Verified" or "Playable" on Steam Deck, indicating that they can run smoothly at the system's 1200800 resolution with a minimum frame rate of 30.
Many recent AAA releases, including shoppingmode Elden Ring, Spider-Man: Remastered, and Death Stranding: Director's Cut, have been fully Deck Verified. It's not just legacy titles that are getting verified.
However, some of those games might be able to run at a slightly higher resolution or frame rate on a more powerful "Steam Deck Pro."
But Valve appears less interested in enhancing performance and more keen on enhancing battery life as long as a sufficient number of games are playable on the hardware.
We wouldn't mind, either, if maintaining the specs allowed a new Steam Deck to be slimmer and/or lighter than the unwieldy present model, but that's just wishful thinking on our part.
Past, current, and future updates
The Valve designers discussed some covert internal modifications they made to newly produced Steam Deck devices elsewhere in the Verge interview.
This includes a modification to the glue holding the battery in a place that should make it simpler to remove and replace, fixing a problem found by the iFixit teardown experts.
In newer models, a whining fan from Delta Electronics in some older Steam Deck units has also been swapped out for one with thicker foam padding; if you have the loud version, you can purchase and install it yourself.
According to the designers, the spongy Steam and Quick Access buttons that are located next to the screen feel better on the newest Steam Deck devices.
In the upcoming months, Valve has loose plans to provide more Steam Deck features via software upgrades.
To start, those include the option to select a different Bluetooth profile or codec to lessen lag in wireless audio and utilize Bluetooth microphones.
Users of Steam Deck may soon be able to share power profiles, similar to how they can already share personalized control profiles for particular games, to aid crowdsource battery life and performance.
However, it will still be up to individual developers to integrate the "trippy" dynamic cloud sync function of the Steam Deck, which enables you to take up a game elsewhere as soon as you put the Steam Deck to sleep.
According to the creators, there are no plans to make such functionality a requirement for Valve's Deck Verified program.
Thoughts about Valve possibly bringing back the discontinued Steam Machines line were the interview's most intriguing tease.
That might imply updated third-party mini-PCs that can connect to TVs and run the updated SteamOS for the Steam Deck.
You must be logged in to post a comment.