Along with the announcement of the Steam Deck OLED, Valve engineers talked about the work they have done and the features they have added to the modernized portable gaming console. Talking about the innovations, they expressed the opinion that there is simply no technology yet that can provide a noticeable increase in power necessary to create a completely new game console. So don't expect Steam Deck 2.0 anytime soon.

"Both the screen and the battery were pretty obvious things [для апгрейда], says Valve veteran and Steam Deck product designer Greg Coomer. 'But the screen, I think, is the largest example of something that we could have put in the first generation model, but we couldn't do it because OLED screens with these characteristics and in this size simply did not exist.' Many of the new Steam Deck OLED features were initiated by user requests, such as a special Bluetooth antenna or an extended power cable.

Valve engineers separately noted the increased maintainability of the Steam Deck OLED – the console has become easier to disassemble and repair independently. Greg Coomer believes that 'users can control what they buy, and having an open software stack is valuable, as is the ability to install a different operating system.'

'Valve wins when users have access to the full range of capabilities because they innovate with us. So we think that in the future we will continue to benefit, customers will continue to benefit, and they can help each other by making changes or modifications available to each other, so it's uplifting for everyone,' Greg concluded.

Commenting on the release of the updated Steam Deck OLED, Valve hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said: 'Obviously, we would like to get even more performance from the same power, but such technology does not exist yet. I think this is what we would call Steam Deck 2.0.' According to Yazan, the entire development team would like to see 'the trend in performance per watt move faster,' but a breakthrough in this area has not yet been achieved.