Valve make no profit on the consoles themselves right? And if the steam deck profit model of making their money off of games applies to games bought on any handheld, then why not let the other companies have the higher end market and all the research and development costs that making a new console needs. Especially because each new generation would need a refresh to stay on top.(more r and d costs) So why wouldnt valve just keep making their current steam deck that runs stuff well enough for them to keep selling games.

  • KlatsBoem@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Designing a handheld comes with a whopping list of considerations and concessions to make that influence usability. Battery size and heat dissipation are two of them.

    • bannedwhileshitting@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Well at least the new OLED deck got bigger 50 Wh battery. But increasing the battery to 100Wh really shouldn’t be that much of a problem. It’s gonna be 100g more weight at most. And I don’t see why heat dissipation would be affected? After all it’s only capacity increase, not power draw, so the battery should let out the same amount of heat regardless of size.

      • KlatsBoem@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I’m sensing a lack of consideration that you might know less about manufacturing a mass marketed PC handheld than they do… I’m only going to humor you this far.

        But increasing the battery to 100Wh really shouldn’t be that much of a problem. It’s gonna be 100g more weight at most.

        You make it sound like an additional 100g on a mass marketed +600g device is not that much of an impact, but I’m pretty sure the effects of weight was one of the metrics in the many iterations that they tested.

        And I don’t see why heat dissipation would be affected?

        Two ways:

        • if higher capacity in same battery dimensions: putting cells closer to each other generates more heat and will slow heat dissipation of the battery cells
        • if higher capacity by increasing battery dimensions: the design has to account for one of its largest components growing 150% in size. This is sure to require a redesign of the entire system’s heat dissipation (all components)