The wait continues: Valve confirms Steam Deck 2 is still in the labs

Today’s proving to be a busy day for Valve news. The creator of the Steam marketplace has now confirmed the price and release date of the Steam Controller. Although we didn’t get any information on the highly anticipated Steam Machine, the company did offer an update on another highly anticipated product it’s currently working on.

Steam Deck developer, Pierre-Loup Griffais, has told IGN that Valve is “hard at work” on the next Steam Deck. When asked about the next handheld PC, Griffais stated:

We’re hard at work on it, and obviously every step of the way, if you look at our hardware projects over the years, you can draw a straight line from the original Steam Controller and Steam Machine to Steam Deck, to everything that we’re announcing and shipping this year. And we expect Steam Deck 2 will be a lot of the same where a lot of what we’re doing here will be learnings that build up to it.

In 2023, Griffais confirmed that there would be a Steam Deck 2. However, he also said that the day for a next-generation Steam Deck may not come for a couple of years. At the time, the developer suggested that Valve would be interested in releasing a Steam Deck 2 when there’s a significant enough performance improvement to be had that doesn’t come at the cost of battery life.

Unfortunately, it looks like Griffais is still unwilling to offer a firm date for when the next-gen Steam Deck could arrive. However, it appears that the company is intent on releasing a new handheld PC. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer before Valve finds that right balance of battery life and higher performance.