Valve won't be releasing a Steam Deck with more performance until at least 2025. Given the smartphone market's reputation for disappointing incremental updates, this is the right choice. Valve should, however, throw gamers a bone with a Steam Deck 1.5.
Agreed and consoles have been shown to benefit from a longer cycle. Let devs get accustomed with the device and find ways to optimize games and engines for the specific configuration. I could see a mid cycle refresh with a lite version or an OLED/AMOLED screen (like the switch had) while keeping the same architecture.
I was going to make that point, but I don’t think the steam deck gets quite the same benefit on optimization. It could, but it needs a lot more volume before devs seriously target it.
More because they can just sell it on PC and a lot of us will tolerate it pushing the hardware past its limit anyways. A PS5 version has an explicit level of responsibility that the Steam Deck doesn’t, unless they’re actively advertising it. (That’s not deck verified, because developers don’t decide that.)