Valve thinks incremental handheld refreshes are “not really fair to customers”

Lenovo Legion Go header
Pictured: Lenovo Legion Go
// Yearly? Nah, yeah-ly.
Nathan Lawrence
Oct 11, 2024
Icon Time To Read1 min read

There are certain products where an annual release has been normalised. Smartphones, tablets and smartwatches to name a few. And while it’s relatively young, certain manufacturers in the gaming handheld PC space have seemingly already settled into yearly refreshes. But for Valve, the company that helped popularise gaming handheld PCs with the Steam Deck, admitted that’s not something they want to do in a recent interview with us.

“It is important to us, and we’ve tried to be really clear, we are not doing the yearly cadence. We’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that,” said Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang.

While no Steam Deck competitors were directly named, it’s clear that Valve doesn’t think it’s a good look for the gaming handheld space.

“And, honestly, from our perspective, that’s kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that’s only incrementally better,” added Yang.

For context, there was only a year between the release of the Ayaneo and the Ayaneo 2, and the Asus ROG Ally landed in 2023 with the refreshed ROG Ally X arriving in 2024. MSI told the Verge that it had plans for the Claw 2, Claw 3 and Claw 4 in the next two years. Refreshingly, like Valve with its Steam Deck 2, Lenovo is reportedly not in a rush to release the Lenovo Legion Go 2.

Compare handheld gaming consoles

Still not sold on the Steam Deck? It might be one of the best handheld gaming consoles available but it's not your only option.

Gaming handheld
Display
Weight
Storage
Price
View more
heroSteam Deck
7/7.4-inch 1280x800 IPS or OLEDFrom 639 grams64GB, 256GB, 512GB, MicroSD
From$705
heroEvercade EXP
4.3-inch 800x480 IPS screen270 grams4GB
From$190.82
heroLenovo Legion Go
8.8-inch 2560x1440 IPS640 grams512GB, MicroSD
From$1348
Nintendo Switch
5.5/6.2/7-inch 1280x720 IPS or OLEDFrom 276 grams32GB, MicroSD
From$329
Razer Edge
6.8-inch 2880x1080 OLED401 grams128GB, MicroSD
From$889.95
Backbone OneBackbone One
N/A
Requires smartphone
138 gramsN/A
Requires smartphone
From$125
Nathan Lawrence
Written by
Nathan Lawrence has been banging out passionate tech and gaming words for more than 11 years. These days, you can find his work on outlets like IGN, STACK, Fandom, Red Bull and AusGamers. Nathan adores PC gaming and the proof of his first-person-shooter prowess is at the top of a Battlefield V scoreboard.

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