Valve has confirmed that there is currently no suitable silicon to develop a next-generation Steam Deck, and this is not expected to change before 2027.
The company continues to seek significantly higher performance without compromising battery life, which is challenging with the chips available on the market.
The situation is partly the result of AMD’s conservative roadmap, supplier of the APU for the Steam Deck, which does not offer substantial advancements in terms of hardware.
We shouldn’t see a new Steam Deck until 2027
The next AMD APU, named Medusa, is expected in 2027 and features notable improvements, including Zen 6 cores and RDNA 5 graphics. Despite its capabilities, it is still unclear whether this chip will meet the demands that Valve has for the next version of the device.
According to Pierre-Loup Griffais from Valve, the company will not settle for performance improvements of less than 20 or 30% while maintaining the same battery life.
In the current context, the Steam Deck remains a popular option in the portable gaming market, having more than met expectations since its launch. However, as technology advances, the need for a true successor becomes more urgent. Valve has indicated that it may explore the option of using Arm chips, such as those from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon line, but this would require long-term development, and there is still no solid foundation for this.
Therefore, it is estimated that the next Steam Deck will not arrive before 2027, which would mean that the original device would have been on the market for more than five years, aligning with the typical life cycles of consoles. Although the wait is considerable, many see this strategy as appropriate to maintain the platform’s relevance in a constantly changing technological environment.