Steam Deck 2 is NOT what you think

hello and welcome to this is I am not Matt Matt is sick but we got news if he's not here in 15 minutes we're legally alive yeah we get to leave and still get our full pay so the this is crew has taken over the studio because we have some breaking news the steam deck 2 secretly announced last night secretly announced it was Gabe it was Gabe's secret Forum account on a Chinese Forum his his his Mandarin is very strong so we have a list of supposed specifications for the steam deck 2 the headlines are all about how it is a massive upgrade and the fine print is is that this leak is almost certainly sus at best and completely fake at worst so I'm just going to say this before we even go through all of this these specs are decent for today in 2024 but if you scroll through some of this stuff supposedly this wouldn't be out until something closer to 2026 which at that point great specs today would just be average at the time but that does kind of make sense because if you think about the steam deck it's always been a little bit behind the curve it's not the bleeding edge but also it's priced reasonably that's what a steam deck is it's like a very reasonable budget for a PC spec shoved into this little form factor that's really cool and has a lot of optimization going for it I think valve absolutely nailed it out of the park when it came to the first steam deck we've seen the OLED which has been a very solid upgrade they really redesigned basically the entire thing and they've kept it at that sort of roughly same price point and in fact they kept the old one around and dro right so we're talking about steam decks you can get for 350 to 400 bucks it would be shocking to me if valve do not try to keep a similarish price point because you know if you think about this landscape you know obviously we've got switch 2 which will certainly be out I hope by 2026 but you also have a ton of PC you know handhelds that are out there but the main difference between what valve and Nintendo are doing and everyone else is that valve and Nintendo own the games they are making that 30% on every game you buy in steam or on the switch whereas all the other PC manufacturers they got to make their money on actually selling you Hardware which makes them incredibly expensive they can sell it at a loss and also a steam deck has the OS going for it everyone talks about Windows and how like you know you can do anything with Windows but in practice all of these other handhelds had Windows as a stumbling block really like yeah okay anything will run on it but will it run well and do you have to deal with this interface and I know that Microsoft has been talking about doing some sort of like light version of Windows that'll work on that since that's become such a market SE that's not going away but as it stands right now even like IO is trying to put theme OS I'm not entirely sure how complete it is I assume it's most of the way there but they'll be shipping this and they'll also give you like Windows drivers now I actually have had some conversations with some companies who are currently in this space and I know that there are active negotiations between some of these PC manufacturers and valve when it comes to Bringing Steam OS to other platforms that are currently running Windows and if you think about it it makes makes a lot of sense from two perspectives if you're the company you of course want to jettison Windows which let's be real is fine and it's good to have as an option but I don't think anyone can say that Windows 11 it's current sort of iteration is a good fit for these handhelds and also the companies get to save a bunch of money cuz they're not paying 50 70 bucks whatever they have to pay for the licensing fee on Windows and I think from an end user perspective you're dealing with a much more smooth streamlined console like update experience how am I supposed to play my favorite game the control panel look I just want clippy 2 the AI version to just automatically show up on my computer one day you seem like you're trying to play a game do you need help let's actually talk about these specs um obviously uh we're going to back up the dump truck full of salt on this one so AMD zen4 which would be a pretty substantial step up from Zen 2 today although we would be a couple years out of date by the time this thing comes out whatever rdna 4 GPU which would again be a couple steps forward if we do some back of the envelope map we would probably be looking at something like two to three times more power so if you think the steam deck is you know what uh 2 years old or so if this next version has these updates it makes sense if you're thinking 3 four years after the initial launch getting a doubling performance this is just totally speculation I don't know what their supply chain looks like but given like the way that those screens are the kind of that funky resolution it kind of I imagine that they are getting some of these parts and like somewhat of like a close out kind of thing by the time 2026 rolls around these parts are not going to be stateoftheart they're probably going to have a bunch of extra ones around that they can do that with you're 100% right so they actually even kind of mentioned a little bit when they launched the OLED it's easy to say in hindsight you know obviously you know genius move but at the moment Val making a big gamble investing a lot so it makes sense they were trying to cut cost where they could so you can imagine that if they've done that for this for steam deck 2 they have the clout and they have importantly the the cash in the bank to come up and say hey we're going to order 3 million of these things make it custom for us well that's one of the reasons why I would call cap on this whole leak is because they don't really have a reason to other than to update the specs if they release the steam deck OLED when they had their own in-house design for the panel then why wouldn't they have why would they go back to off-the-shelf parts so in this sort of Industry you know you have to think like years ahead right and if you're not thinking three years ahead you're going to be left behind by the time the by the time that comes around it 100% makes sense that valve are currently developing steam deck 2 like I have no doubt that as soon as the steam deck Ola went out the door I think the thing that they really do need to do sort of to your point as far as the performance steam deck for as amazing as it is it still is borderline able to run stuff right now and as more and more games are taking advantage of the new like Unreal Engine 5 there's so many things that current games are doing that you can imagine that the steam backck is only going to fall farther and farther behind and while we're seeing really impressive results with the steam deck as is two years from now I think we may be having a little bit of a different conversation that steam deck OLED is is holding back gaming and it makes sense for them to try to make something which is a more substantial Leap Forward one of the other rumor here and this is actually something I can completely buy is that they would stick with a 90 HZ OLED panel but up the resolution a little bit they would be going up to a 900p display I actually could believe that totally because especially on a handheld you're not going to be pushing those kind of high resolutions you don't need crazy crazy sharpness and even if you do have the performance for that it's going to suck battery life so I would rather play my steam deck running at a lower resolution that looks native on the panel I don't necessarily believe that this random Forum that it's weird it's not so necessarily true as it is like just probably correct makes a lot of off of logic I also will say that like whenever I see stuff that's from like hey here's an foreign language Forum I'm trained by being fan of Japanese games enough to be like yeah I totally trust your translation skills as well bro unless steam deck becomes a just gigantic massive sector it can't really hold back gaming because while I do think that like some developers do like Pride themselves on like being deck ready I don't think it's something thing that most AAA companies are like oh you know I need to make sure this can run on the steam deck valve is never going to take a game off steam or hold up game back Ste because it's not deck ready here's the thing we've got these rumors we've got these leaks about a steam deck 2 which is clearly a ways out and Val even said this like hey don't expect a new steam deck for a while so I can believe that we're one and a half two years at least out from the new steam deck okay so what would it take if we were doing a steam deck 2 and don't anyone say cloud gaming and make Matt happy okay because he's not here we don't have to say cloud gaming to appease him I want transparent plastic case make it purple make it Atomic or make it red I'm I'm not picky just do it if they don't put a turbo button on that thing then I'm not buying it I reget ask this question I want gabin to come to my house but not deliver it he's going to just drop off your door and then like creep in the bushes yeah I'll catch him on my ring cam the steam deck when I first put my hands on it back in 2022 right I bounc off it so hard cuz it was so physically big it's still physically big it's not like it's gotten smaller but it's gotten so much better every way since launch that I found myself using the steam deck a lot more but even then it is still to me obnoxiously large I would love a steam deck light I want something that's maybe like a 6-in display that's maybe not quite so wide and I know that I'm going to sacrifice battery life I may sacrifice some performance but like I would personally be willing to make that trade-off even at the same kind of price which I know they would have to cut the price to sell it I know it's a big ask because like how many millions of dollars I have to spend to like develop this Hardware how many people are really going to buy it I don't know but assuming the valve couldn't do this even if valve themselves won't make the steam deck mini that I would love what's stopping other companies from doing it if they're able to license Ste o well then also I think if someone does that and that turns out to be something that people want people who aren't tiny hands Austin uh then valve might go okay maybe we should like make the definitive addition and I will say that the steam deck OLED feels like it's a little bit of a step forward compared to the original Ste deck partially because they were able to because everything was thinner they just fit a physically larger battery in the same size enclosures I think the battery life is a sticking point but I just think it would be really interesting to see that if valve open up Steam OS that to me is kind of the secret sauce like obviously the hardware of the steam deck is great but I would argue that the bigger Innovation is steam West and if they start to put that on other platforms you can imagine a scenario in which if steam starts to propagate in the wild you're saving some money right off the bat by not having to have Windows and you're opening up to let's be honest a better experience for handheld gaming and if you are using your legion go and you love Windows 11 then more power to you I think it should be an option but if you had steo W you were almost guaranteed buying games on Steam and that's where they're making the money not on the hard well so then I think on the flip side of that someone else develops like a cool form factor of that kind of proves that there's demand for it valve can come in and undercut them at whatever price they want to because they are still making money off the softw which is again no one else besides Nintendo can do that right we're thinking two years ahead but I think that's fair because if steam deck 2 is coming out in 2025 2026 if valve make this move right they say hey you know what freefor all you want Steam OS on your device have at it you better believe Microsoft are going to start getting a little itchy you got to believe that they're going to maybe start cutting the prices of Windows and you've got to imagine that they're going to actually optimize the damn thing that's exactly the reason why I'm not as uh bullish on the Steam OS I do still think uh Steam OS does have some missing features that would make it really nice for handheld yeah Big Picture Mode is nice but other than that side loading apps isn't really a thing running your own custom apps on Linux is a huge issue with like you'd have to get wine and stuff like that is it easier for Steam OS to add all those features or is it easier for Microsoft to add Big Picture Mode you can say it's easy for Microsoft to add Big Picture Mode but think about the Legacy like just think about how much is built into Windows what if I need to run my my control panel I don't think Microsoft can make the best frontend interface in the world and streamline updates and everything you're going to end up in control panel and you're going to hate your life as soon as you do that I would love to be proven wrong but until I see a version of Windows that feels like it is really made to be at home on these things I'll believe it what I and I think too the push for Microsoft to do that needs to be pretty significant for them to actually start doing that they need to feel like oh we are legitimately losing a bunch of like market share on these handhelds and I think as of right now that is just not happening Microsoft doesn't get out of bed for less than $10 million exactly like it's if we start seeing even more of a explosion of this then maybe but considering how much they would probably have to build up from the ground up because I think right now we have like three OS St up in the they're shambling forward I feel like this could be a big year for what Steam OS and what Val are able to do because they've got a real hit on their hands and I know for a fact that companies and people are sort of beating their door down saying Hey give us demo well the iono thing uh feels like a little bit of a workaround it's maybe good maybe bad who knows but I think we're going to see a whole lot more about this by the end of 2024 yeah bottom line for what I want on this thing is I want the colorways one reason I am really excited about this too is because companies like Nintendo and valve are make handhelds that are so much more successful than every other company is because they can sell them at a loss because of their software but they can also valve is like the Amazon of video games and Amazon what it really is is a data company so valve have an insane amount of data they know what Hardware every single steam user is running and they know what games are selling and what specs those games require so they can very perfectly Target exactly we know the most average steam users could play these you know 10 games and we know we have the exact right Hardware whatever it is it's probably not what's in this leak it's going to be what VI the steam deck user needs if you are a steam deck user or a fan I think it's perfectly still safe to buy an OLED right now but it makes a lot of sense to valve like every every hardware company is thinking about that next Generation I think that we're in store for a lot of very spicy developments when it comes to steam it comes to all the PC manufacturers trying to compete like this is a hot space and anytime someone can tell me a text story that doesn't have the words AI in it I'll be real real happy and all the competition should mean that we win yes oh no absolutely the fact that like the steam deck is as cheap as it is is absolutely incentive for all the other PC manufacturers who making to be fair you know you look at the other consoles or the other PCS are like 600 bucks that's still a very aggressive price point for these companies but they're going to have even more incentive to try to cut that down more and more and more and build these things up like these things are selling people are interested in these PC handhelds and I think the steam deck is leading the way and they will probably continue to do so thank you very much for watching this matless episode of this is keny and Aaron thank you very much for being far better at being Matt than Matt has ever been I actually don't think the steam deck will ever come out because this will be the third steam deck and VC cane can't three so oh well we had a good run boys

Channel: This Is

Views: 62,473

Keywords: this is, austin evans, matt ansini, test drivers, the test drivers, facebook, tech, technology, amazon, google, sony, playstation, ps5, xbox, apple, meta, gaming, consoles, pcmr, laptops, gpu, rtx, psready, denki, xboxready, superswitchgo

Id: 5Mjunzc3jMY

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024