In recent weeks, there have been rumors of a possible renewal or new iteration Steam Deck. However, Pierre-Loup Griffais, a Valve employee and one of the main engineers behind the console’s design, said that people shouldn’t expect a second version for at least “a couple of years.”

The information was learned through an email exchange between Pierre-Loup Griffais and The Verge and CNBC media outlets. The main reason why Steam Deck 2 won’t appear until 2025 It’s not hard to guess, and it’s a delicate balance that Valve wants to maintain between power and autonomy.

It is true that stronger rivals than the Valve console have appeared in recent months, but the price for the greater performance is a reduction in autonomy, which ultimately leaves only two options: reduce the graphic load and allow rescaling or we have a device that is hardly justified next to a high-performance desktop mini-PC. Added to that is SteamOS, which seems to hold up better than Windows on this type of computer.

Griffais’ announcement that Steam Deck 2 won’t arrive until 2025 at the earliest left many cold, and that’s because Recently, there have been various poorly optimized games that make it difficult for the current console even reducing the graphics load to the maximum and pulling out the FSR. There are notable cases like Starfield and The Last of Us Part 1 here, so some are wondering if the wait will be too long.

The Last of Us Part 1 is being improved with patches and now has a recent 87% positive review, while Starfield’s performance on Steam Deck is improving through operating system updates, starting with the current SteamOS 3.5 preview and support for features like ExecuteIndirect in VKD3D- Proton, the renderer included in Proton that is responsible for translating Direct3D 12 instructions to Vulkan.

When it comes to games that demand too much on a hardware level, on the one hand we have developers doing an increasingly poor job on the optimization level, and on the other hand, what Valve can do to improve both performance and support. In addition to the operating system, the Proton compatibility layer and the VKD3D-Proton and DXVK translators (this is responsible for translating versions 9, 10 and 11 of Direct3D to Vulkan), There’s also RADV, the Vulkan driver for Radeon graphics used by Linux by default and lead by Valve, and FSRAMD scaling technology.

One aspect they mention in The Verge is the screen. The media explains it It would be possible to get “better perceived performance” by simply placing a better screen without necessarily increasing the frame rate.. As an example, according to his version, he took the execution of Starfield on ASUS ROG Ally and Ayaneo Geek 1S. Although the two consoles are similar in performance, Bethesda’s title gives the former a greater sense of fluidity, as the variable refresh rate (VRR) smooths out dips.

Valve has asked for patience with the existence of Steam Deck 2, but there is a possibility that the market will not wait for this and will start to decide for other options that already offer more performance, especially when they see that games have more and more higher requirements and Unreal Engine 5 , which promises a great visual evolution, but in exchange for requiring relatively powerful hardware in the case of triple A.

Valve is right not to enter a contest of power and to insist on a more balanced approach. The company behind Steam can improve not only the performance and capacity of internal components, but also the screen and components such as SteamOS, Proton, VKD3D-Proton, RADV and FSR. AMD’s upscaling technology can play a huge role in improving gaming performance and battery life.