If you’re considering buying a Steam Deck, Valve reiterates it’s not jumping on the yearly release train just to put out something “only incrementally better”

Valve’s not planning on doing yearly updates to its Steam Deck, the handheld’s developers have reiterated. Instead, they’re planning on waiting for a proper “generational leap” in teach to arrive before putting out what’ll be the next generation of Deck.

Since arriving in 2022, the deck has recieved some revisions, most notably the release of its OLED models late last year, but Valve has been steadfast in saying it’s not planning on doing annual revamps like clockwork just for sake of it, something that’s not changing as the Deck finally becomes available in the land down under – Australia, if you’re not into Men At Work – this isn’t changing.

Speaking to Reviews.org about that Aussie arrival, Valve designers Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat were asked about the idea of the company’s competitors in the handheld market doing yearly revamps, and responded that it’s an apparoach Valve just isn’t interested in taking with the Deck.

“It is important to us, and we’ve tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence,” Yang said, “We’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that. And, honestly, from our perspective, that’s kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that’s only incrementally better.”

He reiterated that the company instead plans to “wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck”, adding that that device is still “something that we’re excited about and we’re working on”.

So, there you go, no Steam Deck elite gamer edition with Gabe Newell’s face and a little speech bubble that says ‘Wahey, I’ve just managed to recover Roach from the roof of some Temerian villagers in The Witcher 3, while also being sat between an elderly couple and a clearly out of his depth dad with a buggy on this bus’ on the back of it coming in 2025. We assume. Then again, this is the games industry.

If you want something cool to play on your Steam Deck while you wait for that leap to happen, here’s the esteemed Tom Orry saying things about a retro racer he recently enjoyed dipping into on his. Oh and we’ve been telling you about a bunch of cool Next Fest demos as part of our latest Wishlisted event.