Valve claims that it is 'not fair to your customers' if you create yearly iterations like the Steam Deck. Instead, it is waiting for a 'generational leap in computing without sacrificing battery-life'

Lawrence Yang and Yazan aldehayyat from the Valve Deck duo have been making the rounds in recent times as Australia finally gets a proper Steam Deck released. Yang and Aldehayyat had to answer the standard questions about a possible Steam Deck 2.

Unsurprisingly, Valve's answer in an Interview with Reviews.org via Eurogamer remains the same as it was last year. They want to wait until the technological ecosystem surrounding handheld gaming PCs has improved before they even consider a new version.

The release of the Steam Deck OLED a year after the original might have led to some people expecting a yearly update of Valve's handheld tech. But, probably not anyone involved with Valve or PC hardware releases...

You only need to look at the Valve Index headset and all the noises made about a sequel or second version of that smart piece of tech to see that Gabe’s gang aren't going to release new, barely iterative, hardware just to add a '2" to the box. If we're talking about long-lost sequels you can make a nod towards Valve's developers and a certain Freeman series.

Valve's Deck team also made it clear that the OLED device was not a sequel. This means that no one should have expected a repeat this year.

In this latest interview, Yang stated: "It's important to us and we have tried to be very clear, we don't do the yearly cadence."

"We won't do a bump every single year," he continued. "There's really no reason to do this." From our perspective, it's not fair to your customers to release something so soon, which is only incrementally improved. We want to wait until there is a significant leap in computing power without sacrificing battery life, before we ship a real second-generation Steam Deck. We're excited and working on it."

This is almost exactly what Yang said to me last year around the launch of OLED version: "It has to be at the right time," says he. "And we need to have the right components for it. We want to be able call it a Steam Deck 2 if there is a significant leap in performance.

"We're keeping a close eye on the chips and APUs that are available." The products that are currently available are not yet perfect. Maybe in two or three years there will be a chip that is as good as our current APU in terms of power envelope, performance, and battery draw. All of those things need to be at the sweet spot to make a real switch to a new chip."

Aldehayyat adds, "We will be able have a substantial improvement in performance while sticking to the same kind of power range and battery life. This is not going to be the case next year or in the year following. It's likely going to be more."

Don't expect any updates to the Steam Deck in this year or next year. I asked about a Steam Deck Light and was told it wasn't being considered. Yang tells me that "I think the next thing we're working is Steam Deck 2".

We can at least be sure that will come, but don't expect to see it any time soon. You shouldn't have either.