this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Steam Deck designers Lawrence Yang and Yazan Aldehayyat spoke recently on the idea of releasing a marginally improved handheld each year. (www.pcgamesn.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

This is a tricky one, honestly, because the steam deck straddles the line between PC and console.

If you were a Sony fan, you'd be rightfully upset if Sony released a new PlayStstion every year, and made new games only for the new hardware. It's just not long enough to feel the hardware has ran its lifespan, and you feel cheated.

Conversely in PCs, the expectation is that the hardware slowly improves constantly, and new hardware doesn't stop you playing all the latest games on your old hardware; the only limiting factor is how far your old hardware can be pushed before the performance is too poor. And that is YOUR choice as a user, not an artificial choice imposed on you.

I'd expect that any Steam Deck 2 is going to be more like the PC model - it won't create exclusives or stop people playing the new games on their old deck, it will simply be better and faster.

So on that basis I wouldn't personally have a problem if Valve put out a deck every year.

All that said however, I think waiting several years is the smart business move. People have longer to enjoy their hardware while still feeling like they have the "latest model" - it's psychologically better from the consumer perspective.

There may also be an argument that longer release cycles makes things less complicated for devs (less devices to test on) and also keeps the hardware going for longer, because devs will be incentivised to optimise performance for the current deck (which they might not be as much after a new one comes along)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think your last point also applies to Valve. Limiting the number of models simplifies things for Valve; effectively they only have two models to support right now between the LCD and OLED models. From a software perspective I assume they’re extremely similar except at a very low level, mainly with the display panel difference. From a hardware perspective that’s only 2 main SKU families (looks like maybe 6 total with 3 of each?) and still probably a lot of parts overlap except with the panel and I’d assume two variants of the mainboard to accommodate different connections for each panel. Even making the OLED variants complicated things I’m sure, but it should be manageable.

We learned within the past year that Valve is still an astonishingly small company compared to how much revenue it has; I think they were only around 450 employees. That’s pretty doable with software, but dealing with hardware starts to force that level up and would start cutting into the incredible profitability per employee that they’re accustomed to.

Of course they’ve made plays in the hardware space before, but I don’t think anything’s been near the volume the Steam Deck has. Even assuming that they’re outsourcing the manufacturing, and maybe fulfillment, and maybe even warranty repairs, that still means they need employees to manage and support those programs. They need employees trained to support those products. They need to store spare parts and plan to have enough to legal requirements beyond the final sale date. They need to test software updates against every hardware variant prior to release for as long as the product is supported. Keeping the number of SKUs small makes the rest of that manageable and hopefully keeps profitability high and quality of service good. If they start adding too many SKUs then they need more employees, giving lower profitability and they start cutting quality and service until we end up with the bad products and support we see from so many big PC companies.

It seems like they’re working towards opening Steam OS up where other companies can make their own devices. Let other companies handle the incremental updates and making the software work with their hardware. Let Valve keep focusing on just making a few things but making them really good.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I agree with all of that, pretty much.

If Asus or whoever else dropped a "steam deck killer" I'm pretty sure Valve wouldn't even blink.

Valve didn't make the deck because they wanted to make money on hardware. I expect very much they made it specifically because they wanted to encourage the move of steam gaming from the PC to the couch, and they needed some hardware to prove their point with - like with the Steam Link where they tried this before, and that time failed.

If it later ends up being other companies in the long run who make the hardware then no worries, the mission was already accomplished.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I would like to see Deck treated more like a phone, kind of like they are. Incremental improvements alternated with (hopefully to come) generational leaps.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

This is exactly what I was thinking. You wouldn't need every new iteration. They'd be smart to do it in such a way that lets you upgrade it like you would do a regular PC as opposed to people throwing their old phones out just to get one that's marginally better 2 years later.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I would rather a long life cycle. Devs shouldn't be releasing unoptimized games in the first place. The current deck is powerful enough to run most things and a release every year means worse support and more e-waste in addition to minimal advances in tech to justify the cost. It also fragments the market for supported on deck status.

Its not supposed to replace a top of the line gaming rig.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly!
Yearly phone releases are already too much, let alone a entire gaming handheld 😵‍💫