The Steam Machine is officially ready to launch, but that hasn’t stopped us from wondering how close Valve is to unveiling the long-awaited Steam Deck 2. Speaking to IGN ahead of today's Steam Machine review, Valve’s engineers hinted that the Steam Deck 2 is closer than ever, but that they still haven’t seen the “generational leap” they’re waiting for to make a second-generation Deck worth it.

“I'd say we're closer than we were the last time we talked,” said Valve Engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais. “We’re definitely getting there.”

For those keeping track, Griffais told us Valve has a “pretty good idea” of what Steam Deck 2 is going to be in November of last year, and reiterated they were “hard at work” when we spoke ahead of the Steam Controller launch earlier this year.

In the time since then, a new generation handheld gaming processor hit the market – the new Intel Arc G3, which will launch in the $1,799 MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, as well as a handful of other Windows-based handhelds in the coming weeks.

The Arc G3 is a powerful chip to be sure, but it still wasn’t enough to move the needle for Valve.

“I would say that the new chips that are coming out are still in power envelopes that are not quite the right segment that you'd want for a true handheld experience,” Griffais said. “I think a lot of them are more low-end laptop chips or playing in that sort of form factor that are then repurposed for handhelds and maybe not leading to, I guess the trade-off that we would've chosen in terms of power and better life and that and all that.”

In other words, there’s likely enough power in the chips coming out these days, but they wouldn’t be able to hit those numbers while also maintaining the kind of battery life that Valve wants to see in its next-generation handheld. Of course, the ongoing RAM crisis is likely a factor as well, and I don’t doubt that Valve would prefer to wait until supply – and prices – return to more normal levels on that front before committing to putting out a new handheld, especially if it hopes to launch at or near the original price point of the Steam Deck, which itself recently saw a significant price hike.

All that said, Griffais was clear that a Steam Deck 2 is still in the works.

“We're working towards our next gen for sure,” Griffais said. “We'll definitely be talking about that in the coming years, but right now we're focusing on Machine.”

For more on the Steam Machine, check out our full review.

Bo Moore is IGN's Senior Manager of Tech. You can find him online @usebomswisely.