Honestly, I'm glad they aren't in a rush to constantly release slightly improved models, unlike phone manufacturers for example. Wait a few years and make the upgrade count.
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This is proper expectation management.
Companies leaking their v2 plans effectively shut down sales of v1. And if there's a long time gap to shipping v2, their revenue gets hammered. If a startup, can go out of business. Have seen it happen lots of times.
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"So we've been working back from silicon advancements and architectural improvements, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what the next version of Steam Deck is going to be, but right now there's no offerings in that landscape, in the SoC [System on a Chip] landscape, that we think would truly be a next-gen performance Steam Deck," Griffais continued
It sounds like what they are aiming for might not be in their alleged sub $1,000 price target.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles
Since then, home game consoles have progressed through technology cycles typically referred to as generations. Each generation has lasted approximately five years, during which the major console manufacturers have released console with broadly similar specifications.
Things might work differently for Valve due to games they sell also running on devices from other manufacturers and their hardware presumably being fully backwards-compatible. I wouldn't be confident saying that they would work the same way.
However, if one assumes that they do work similarly, the Steam Deck came out in early 2022, (and the minor OLED update in 2023). If they intend a five-year model, one would expect 2027.
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Now that SteamOS runs on ARM, I'm wondering if there's an X Elite (or similar) SD2 on the Horizon. That would certainly be a huge boost in power and battery life...
Might as well target dates after a projected PS6 launch. For what's available, only Strix Halo handhelds are an impressive upgrade to me and those draw too much power to be viable
They could also achieve it with a mix of processor and battery improvements though?
If you can double the battery density (not sure if that's feasible either?) then you can get away with less efficient silicon (within thermal limits)
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