Valve Plans to Improve Steam Deck Battery and Screen
The Steam Deck, after just recently arriving in Asia on top of all of the sales elsewhere around the globe, has been an absolute force in the gaming market for handheld consoles. What’s the main reason? Well, sure, it’s a great device and the company makes solid products, but we need to focus in on the fact that it’s handheld, portable and mobile. For these reasons, there aren’t many products out there that can match its performance, and the market is acting accordingly as they continue to get more and more users, all while Steam continues to grow the size of their library of games.
That being said, there are some areas of the device that very clearly could use some improvement, and that’s evident even to Steam Deck developers Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais. The developers understand that there are going to be some issues that arise along the way, or areas of the device that can be improved or upgraded based on performance and community feedback. Valve has historically been great at addressing this.
A few of those areas include the screen and the battery. The screen is manageable without any real gameplay issues that would hinder the user, but it doesn’t stand out as overly impressive. Also, the battery life is relatively poor overall. Not only does the battery drain a lot faster than desired, it’s not really easily fixable in comparison to other areas of a device that’s otherwise pretty easily fixable. Now, these issues are certainly not life or death by any means, but as someone that puts out the money for a Steam Deck, in today’s gaming age they want it to be top-notch, and who could blame them.
The screen has been an area where not too much attention has been given yet from Valve, perhaps because it’s serviceable at the moment and it’s not really a legitimate hardware problem. The battery, on the other hand, is something that needs to be addressed sooner than later. The developers mentioned that in early prototypes the battery was shifting around inside the console and it was not enjoyable at all to play, and was borderline annoying.
After some work, they understood the importance of locking in the battery in place in order to prevent it from causing issues while being played and also while being shipped. The change was unquestionably for the better, but the battery life is still a legitimate concern. Rest assured, Valve and their developers are aware of the problem though, and just like with the advancement in iPhone batteries, something better is all but guaranteed to come in the future, and it’s likely pretty soon.
Valve also noted that they are considering constructing a new Steam controller, to the delight of the community, but it’s not set in stone yet. The original one was mediocre at best, despite being impressively customized, but it was really only attractive to a small number of Steam Deck players. With the new proposed model, it’s something that can be released at a larger scale and appeal more to the masses, with improved features as well.
The controller doesn’t have Valve’s priority though. Their focus right now is strictly on the Steam Deck and the aforementioned concerns. As they continue to address each issue one by one and improve performance, the user base will continue to grow. Although it’s arguably the best handheld console out there, there’s still room for improvement not just for the current original model, but also for potential future versions of the Steam Deck as well as Valve continues to work on the blueprints for newer models.