ARM processor instead of x86?
I’ve been using the ARM version on Rocknix and it’s amazing. The power efficiency while maintaining graphic quality is really surprising. I sure hope SteamDeck 2 is ARM. I’d be a little surprised if not.
It would also give an edge to linux-based handhelds compared with windows ones.
That’s my secret hope, since they already have the Frame on ARM. This would make the release of a separate ARM based Steam OS more likely and my tablet will be very thankful for that.
There is already an arm version of the steam client you can download right now.
I’m talking about the Steam OS, not the Steam client.
At this point they arent just waiting on the chip, they’re waiting on cost.
Releasing a more expensive system when they just raised the price of the original would be insane.
People do remember consoles normally decrease in price as they age, yes?
Hardware usually first reduces in price because manufacturers start with a need to quickly recover the large R&D costs using a high profit margin, and at some point they break even and can start bringing the price down. And often manufacturing just does get cheaper as time goes on too. Game consoles are kinda special, as they are often sold at a loss from the start because they expect sales in games to eventuslly cover it all, so their pricing usually slowly trends down in hopes it attracts new owners that will then buy a bunch of games.
Valve doesn’t do that with the Deck (they want the hardware division to be entirely self-sufficient), but they also set the margim to be really low right from the start to be competitive, so they had to increase the price to match current manufacturing costs or each Deck would lose the hardware division a lot of money.
Prices for consoles went up, too
If a Steam Deck 2 costs more than 1000 euro/usd, I’m not interested. The original Steam Deck was interesting to me because it was cheaper than a gaming PC.
I don’t see it happening before the AI bubble pops, and after it pops we’ll all be too busy scavenging to play games. 😉
Given the price of everything, it’s hard to be excited about this. I’ll probably stick with what I have and get used hardware if I’m hard-pressed to get something more.
