Next-gen Steam Decks will be "more open and capable," Valve says

gamesradar.com:

Valve has confirmed that there will be new iterations of the Steam Deck and teased a couple of ways they'll improve on the original.

In a new e-book (opens in new tab) (thanks, GamingOnLinux (opens in new tab)) launched in coordination with the handheld's launch in Asian territories, Valve made crystal clear that there will eventually be a Steam Deck 2 - not the official name, mind - and that it'll be built using feedback from the community on the currently available handheld. The company also teased that future versions of the Steam Deck will be "even more open and capable" than OG Steam Deck.

"This is a multi-generational product line. Valve will support Steam Deck and SteamOS well into the foreseeable future. We will learn from the Steam community about new uses for our hardware that we haven’t thought of yet, and we will build new versions to be even more open and capable than the first version of Steam Deck has been."

As our colleagues at PC Gamer (opens in new tab) are wise to point out, Valve is breaking from tradition by promising a follow-up to a specific piece of kit. Successors to Valve-created hardware like the Steam Controller, Steam Machine, Steam Link, and even the Valve Index have yet to be confirmed, but here we are with explicit confirmation from Valve itself that we will be getting a Deck 2, or Deck Pro, or Deck Ultra, or whatever, just a few months after the handheld's initial launch.

Valve also confirmed in the same e-book that it's replacing Steam's Big Picture mode with the Steam Deck's popular UI.