A trusted AMD leaker has seemingly revealed the release window for Valve‘s highly anticipated Steam Deck 2 handheld console.
Valve’s Steam Deck landed in February 2022 and quickly became the go-to handheld PC for lots of folks who wanted their Steam library on the couch or on a plane. In late 2023, Valve followed it up with the Steam Deck OLED, same performance, but a nicer 7.4-inch HDR OLED screen, bigger battery, Wi-Fi 6E, and a handful of smart tweaks that made it feel more refined.
Now that we’re inching toward the next generation of console cycle in general, fans are wondering when the next-gen Deck is going to be released. Valve has been pretty upfront about this. The company says it won’t ship a true successor until there’s a “generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck.”
In short, Valve won’t release a Steam Deck 2 until there’s a big, obvious leap in performance without hurting battery life: no minor spec bumps and no quick refresh just to ship something. Even so, players are hoping for Steam Deck 2 updates, and now, we have some new details about its release window.
Steam Deck 2 Release Window Leaked?
A well-known AMD hardware leaker, KeplerL2, has weighed in on the Steam Deck 2 rumors. Posting on NeoGAF in a thread about the Xbox ROG Ally and Ally X handhelds, they claimed Valve’s Steam Deck 2 will release sometime in 2028. Yes, that’s a long wait. If accurate, it would arrive even after the rumored 2027 launch window for PlayStation 6. “Steam Deck 2 is 2028,” they wrote.
That would put Steam Deck 2 roughly six years after the OLED model and about three years from now. It also lines up with Valve’s own caution about waiting for a meaningful jump in chips and efficiency rather than dropping a modest spec bump.
Of course, as with any rumor, we suggest taking everything with a grain of salt until Valve officially announces something.
If that timing holds, expect Valve to skip AMD’s current Z2 handheld processors, something Valve already said it isn’t using, and instead target a newer generation that can deliver clearly better frame rates at Deck-friendly power budgets. “There is and will be no Z2 Steam Deck,” Valve designer Pierre-Loup Griffais said in a post on Bluesky.
Previous reports and podcasts floated ideas like an AMD “Magnus” APU powering Valve’s next-gen hardware, along with talk of a separate SteamOS living-room box. (Fremont)
On the competitor side, multiple reports suggest Sony is also developing a PS6 handheld with specs below a PS5 but capable enough for native play with upscaling, which is rumored to launch alongside or shortly after the PlayStation 6 console.
What do you think? Would you wait until 2028 for Steam Deck 2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
