Valve reveals plans to improve the Steam Deck screen and battery

As we discussed earlier this week, The Steam Deck had a hellish year of its release. It should come as no surprise, then, that Valve is looking ahead to the future of its new handheld device, which it has officially designated as a “multi-generational product.” The company has now revealed a bit about what it hopes to improve and where it’s looking to expand in the hardware game.

in wide range meeting with the edgeSteam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais talked about the concrete ambitions and goals of the Steam Deck. After nearly a year in the wilderness, Deck certainly impressed with its performance and Wide range of games. However, the areas for improvement are obvious: the screen is serviceable, but a far cry from that of the new Nintendo Switch OLED model. And the battery not only tends to run out quickly, but as such iFixit noted in his reviewIt is one of the least repairable things Otherwise salvageable device. We now know that these last two points are the top priority for Valve.

Although the company did not disclose much of its plans for Screen optimizationI shared some thoughts on the battery, its replaceability, and how future iterations of the product address areas of concern.

With a battery that quickly loses its juice, and the nature of this power source to degrade over time, poor replaceability is disappointing. Griffais said the edge that’s why The possibility of expanding the batteryYou can’t really get the hole that looks like a battery [inside the Deck] Being exactly the same size as the battery” and having all the glue holding it in place keep it from moving around too much.

The concern about the Ratley Battery was apparently a developing problem. Griffis said, “In some of our prototypes, we had [the battery shifting around] And I’ll tell you, it doesn’t feel good at all when you’re moving around and trying to use your deck.” Yang playfully added, “You don’t want a Steam Deck maraca, and you don’t want to touch a battery of other important components and shove it around.”

The decision to secure the battery firmly in place was therefore essential to obtaining the deck in a reliably operable, chargeable and safe condition. Yang revealed that Valve has “changed its architecture [glue that holds the battery]Which would allow for easier removal and repairs down the line.

Valve also revealed, perhaps to the surprise and delight of a select few, that the new Steam console is also something the company aspires to. The The original Steam console It was a bit of an exotic bird, but the high level of customization caught the attention of a dedicated, albeit small, fan base. We’re picking a few who actually fell in love with it, but Steam Deck kept pretending The need for more flexible and dynamic game consoles for computer games.

Read more: Steam Deck’s unconventional controls prove that gamepads are outdated

But if you’re ready to throw cash at the screen to follow up on Valve’s owl-shaped console, I’m sorry to say it may take a while. “Right now, we’re focusing on the deck,” Yang said. “[A controller is] Definitely something we’d be happy to work with a third party on or explore ourselves.”