- Moore’s Law Is Dead’s Broken Silicon 319 podcast includes speculation about a Steam Deck successor and a Valve home console
- Valve is rumored to be working on both systems, with the console supposedly using AMD’s upcoming Zen 6 APU
- MLID guest speculates that Sony is working closely with Valve for more Deck Verified PS titles on Steam
It’s no surprise that Valve’s Steam Deck has been largely successful since its launch in 2022, with multiple configurations available at affordable prices and the popular SteamOS at the helm. Now, new speculation suggests Valve’s plans for a successor may be bigger than we thought.
As reported by NotebookCheck, Valve is rumored to be working on a successor to the Steam Deck and a dedicated home console, with the latter potentially utilizing AMD’s upcoming Zen 6 APU, codenamed Magnus. That’s based on speculation and internal leaks from host Tom and Jimmy Champagne on Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID).
Speculation from Jimmy Champagne also hints at Sony working closely with Valve going forward, specifically with ensuring that PlayStation titles have full support on the Steam Deck. This isn’t far-fetched either, as Sony has made a clear effort to make its first-party titles Deck Verified – and that’s evident with games like The Last of Us Part 2 and God of War Ragnarok.
The AMD Zen 6 APU is also reportedly being used for either Sony’s PS6 or Microsoft’s Xbox next-gen consoles, and is projected to be a powerful chip for gaming performance with 11 CPU cores. When referring to the prospect of a home console, MLID mentions: “All I can say is I was told [years ago] full stop they’re [Valve] are using AMD, it’s going to be really powerful, and they’re going to treat this like a proper console launch to compete as a console”.
If this is indeed the processor used in the purported dedicated Steam home console, it hints at Valve shaping up to move matters beyond portability with a handheld.
Analysis: If Sony won’t make a native PlayStation handheld, a more powerful Steam Deck will do
Besides the classic Sony PlayStation Portable (or PSP), Sony has yet to make a strong effort to battle in the handheld market. I say this because the PlayStation Portal is far from what I want from Sony, as I’d much rather have a handheld that can play games natively instead of streaming them.
While you could say it’s just based on speculation, Sony and Valve have clearly been working closely since a large majority of PlayStation titles on PC go straight to Steam.
As I’ve mentioned, there’s a sense that Sony puts extra effort into optimizing games for Valve’s Deck Verified system, especially with its Nixxes Software developers, who are known for great optimization, at the helm of PC ports.
I don’t see Sony bringing its blockbuster first-party titles to PC on day one, but if it sticks with the staggered release trend and it doesn’t bother creating a native handheld experience, I’ll happily settle with a Steam Deck 2 as an alternative, with a more powerful processor for better performance.
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