in an interview with The Barge (opens in new tab)Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais have revealed that Valve has broad plans to update their pocket-sized Steam Deck gaming PCs. (opens in new tab) A mix of both hardware and software upgrades.
When asked what improvements they’d like to make to the revised Steam deck, both Yang and Griffais cited screen and battery life as top candidates, but didn’t provide specific details. However, it is unlikely that your machine will perform better any time soon.
“At the moment, we have one target to understand the fact that all Steam decks can play the same game, and the kind of performance levels users expect while playing, to understand what developers should target. The fact that there is…there’s a lot of value in having that one specification,” says Griffais. “I think we will choose to keep the performance level for the time being and only consider changing the performance level if we see a significant improvement.”
Speaking of the steam deck battery, it is set to be easy to replace. Current model batteries are one of the few components that are difficult to replace due to the extensive use of adhesive. Unfortunately, the battery is arguably the most wear-out part of the machine.
“We changed the shape of the adhesive to make it easier to loosen the battery,” Yang says.
Another fix that should be rolled out soon involves Bluetooth audio. The Steam Deck uses high quality streaming codecs by default, so you may experience noticeable audio delay when using Bluetooth headphones with the Deck. The solution is to allow the user to select a lower quality mode.
From a broader hardware perspective, Yang and Griffais love the idea of Steam Decks to inspire a new generation of desktop Steam machines, but it doesn’t look like Valve has plans to create the box itself. .
“I’m excited to see people build their own SteamOS machines, including a small PC next to their TV,” says Yang. But he points out that Valve does too much with decks to make a desktop box, Griffais points out. “Deck is so busy right now that we can’t be everywhere at once,” he says.
Many new features and fixes are planned for the software. Share per-game settings profiles with other Deck users, more game-specific performance optimizations, new audio mixer to control sound levels for games, music and chat separately, never-before-seen legacy mobile games All of the smartphones such as the introduction of are on the list.
In short, Valve has lots of exciting things planned for Steam decks in 2023.