Valve Confirms Steam Deck 2 Plans Are Unaffected by RAM Shortage

Valve has officially opened registrations for its upcoming virtual reality headset, the Steam Frame. This high-end device, priced at over $1,000, is just one of three new gaming hardware releases planned for 2026. This new venture follows the success of the Steam Deck, a handheld PC that many fans are eager to see updated soon. Valve has confirmed that the Steam Deck 2 is still in the works, and the ongoing RAM crisis hasn’t significantly impacted its development.

In a recent interview, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais addressed questions about the Steam Deck 2, which is set to be a more powerful next-gen iteration of the popular portable PC. When asked if the current RAM shortages and rising tech prices have delayed the Steam Deck 2, Griffais responded, “Not really. We’ve talked before about how we want to ensure there’s a clear performance improvement for a future Steam Deck, and I think we’re still looking at it in the same way. It’s just a matter of assessing the current conditions and determining how and when we can deliver something like that.”

He added, “But from what we’re working on, as far as the user experience and the product we’re trying to build, the goals remain very similar.”

Valve has been transparent about its intentions to create a successor to the Steam Deck for some time. “We really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck,” the company stated back in 2024. Earlier this year, there were rumors suggesting that Valve aimed to release the Steam Deck 2 by 2028.

While Valve insists that the RAM crisis hasn’t altered its plans for the Steam Deck 2, the company acknowledged that rising prices for products like the original Steam Deck and Steam Machine may have affected sales, though the extent of this impact remains unclear.

“It’s a little hard to say because we’re still working on getting the whole launch quantity through, but in practice, I think price definitely impacts demand,” Griffais noted. “We’ll have to keep an eye on how things are progressing, but we’re pretty comfortable with the fact that all these products are trending similarly to other products in the market.”