The Valve Steam Deck is something quite impressive. This new gaming hardware from Valve blew up in popularity as it gave players essentially a portable handheld gaming PC. It’s proven to be more than reliable for various video games, and new releases are still coming out with the Steam Deck verification. However, there is one component that fans might have assumed Valve is working on. That’s a Steam Deck with an OLED display. But don’t hold your breath on a new model coming out anytime soon.
There’s quite a push for OLED. With its incredible pops of color and deep blacks, it’s a desirable display for media consumption with films, shows, and video games. For instance, the Nintendo Switch has an OLED model that might make it far more appealing to purchase than the standard edition. So it would make sense for consumers to feel that Valve is also working on an OLED edition of the popular Steam Deck device. But that’s not an easy process, according to Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais.
Speaking with PC Gamer, the engineer noted that there are several obstacles that Valve would have to overcome with OLED. It’s not an easy process just to swap out the display. This is because the development team focused on building the Steam Deck around the current LCD. Since there is so much anchored to the display, it would be difficult to swap out the LCD panel, which means there’s likely no movement around an OLED model release heading to the marketplace.
I think people are looking at things like an incremental version and assume that it’s an easy drop-in. But in reality, the screen’s at the core of the device. Everything is anchored to it. Basically everything is architected around everything when you’re talking about a device that small. I think it would be a bigger amount of work than people are assuming it would be. […] I don’t think we’re discounting anything. But the idea that you could just swap in a new screen and be done—it would need more than that to be doable.
Pierre-Loup Griffais – PC Gamer
With that said, Pierre-Loup Griffais noted that he believes features such as dimming the display for low-light gaming and altering the refresh rate is possible on an OLED. As a result, this might be something used for the next generation of the Steam Deck. But again, don’t hold your breath that this next-generation device is coming out anytime soon. It was just earlier this month that Pierre-Loup Griffais noted that he believes this Steam Deck has the potential to be a solid device throughout the generation right now.
Of course, it could also boil down to how well the games are optimized for the Steam Deck. If newer titles fail to become as well optimized for the Steam Deck, then it might persuade Valve to bring out a newer model into the marketplace. But that’s purely speculative on my part as again, we don’t have any indication of just when the next model will be unveiled to the public.
