Steam Deck OLED Screen Update May Not Come Anytime Soon

Since the Steam Deck has proven to be a major success and has revitalized the handheld gaming industry, there has been a lot of speculation about potential hardware upgrades or even a second generation. In a recent interview, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais stated that while Valve is definitely interested in improving the Steam Deck and is “exploring all options,” upgrading the device to an OLED screen may not be a straightforward process.

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Valve’s designer Lawrence Yang and engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais previously indicated that a more advanced version of the Steam Deck won’t be available in the near future. In a recent interview, Griffais elaborated on how certain upgrades, specifically the screen, could be difficult to implement. According to Griffais, Valve recognizes the constraints of the Deck’s current screen technology.

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I think people are looking at things like an incremental version and assume that it’s an easy drop-in, but in reality, the screen’s at the core of the device. Everything is anchored to it. Basically everything is architected around everything when you’re talking about a device that small. I think it would be a bigger amount of work than people are assuming it would be. […] I don’t think we’re discounting anything. But the idea that you could just swap in a new screen and be done—it would need more than that to be doable.”

Valve doesn’t seem to be abandoning the idea of minor hardware upgrades, but it seems that such upgrades might be too complicated to implement. Therefore, it’s unlikely that we’ll see an incremental update like the Nintendo Switch OLED, and instead, we can expect a full-fledged successor with comprehensive upgrades.

Via PC Gamer