The all-new Steam Deck will not be releasing for another few months but developer Valve already has plans for its next iteration model.
Speaking with Rocket Paper Shotgun in a recent interview, product designers Greg Coomer and Lawrence Yang stated that Valve is “already looking ahead to the future because we believe this is a product line which will have a long life.”
Coomer and Yang noted that Steam Deck was never supposed to achieve 4K output with its current display. The final product though is something Valve is “actually really happy with” since it sits comfortably in a “sweet spot around [the] screen size and the readability” and other technological standpoints.
However, that said sweet spot is not available for all games running on Steam Deck, which Valve wants to address in the future. Valve believes that a new Steam Deck model will be applicable after a couple of years and when that happens, the next device in the family will target 4K from the start.
Interestingly enough, the decision to scrap support for 4K resolution was intentional. The device can still be designed to output 4K on its current display but which “would not have been worth the trade-off.”
Steam Deck comes off as a handheld console but is designed to be a portable PC which can play games from a Steam library. The device can also do much more than that as players can install Windows over the default SteamOS as well as other Windows-supported software and applications. The device can be used to stream and can be plugged into a monitor or television set.
Steam Deck comes in several editions with the cheapest being $350, the same as the new Nintendo Switch OLED model but far more powerful in comparison. There is also a $550 model which upgrades the NVMe solid-state drive, adds a premium glass, and includes some exclusive goodies like a unique carrying case and a virtual keyboard theme.
