Steam developer Valve is working on new hardware. An official certification shows that it’s already pretty far advanced. Will they be competing with Nintendo’s Switch 2?
Valve has long been known for more than just Steam and games. At the latest with the introduction of the Steam Deck 2022, the US company has also made a name for itself as a hardware manufacturer.
Valve’s past shows that it is not a flash in the pan. The company has already released its own controller, VR goggles, mini PCs in console format and more.
Now the Steam developer apparently has a new hardware product in the pipeline. Its development is also already quite advanced. Because Valve has had the gadget officially certified.
Valve: New hardware in the works
What happened? User @SadlyItsBradley shared an interesting find on Platform X (formerly Twitter). According to the post, Valve has submitted a new low-power wireless device to the RRA. The RRA is South Korea’s broadcasting and communications equipment quality certification authority.
The device submitted to the RRA is code-named RC-V1V-1030.
Nice side info Lynch adds to his post: The Valve Index VR goggles and Steam Deck already had to be certified with the RRA. They carried the identification numbers 1007 and 1010.
A new Valve hardware device just received radio certification in South Korea
Valve Index was 1007
Steam Deck was 1010
? is 1030https://t.co/AfgKorlyFZ pic.twitter.com/ECJPhqxTsu– Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) September 7, 2023
Why does it matter? Valve’s application so far reveals little information about the planned device. Such as that the device will have a wireless communication capability in the form of 5 GHz Wi-fi and will run on low power.
Nevertheless, the finding is not unimportant. Because South Korea does not require such certification for prototypes, but only for a certain amount of imported products, as (The Verge) reported.
With this, the certification strongly suggests that Valve is already well advanced in the development of the device. Meta’s (formerly Facebook’s) Quest 3 also received its certification just a few months ago – it was announced on June 01, 2023.
What could Valve currently be working on?
Which product Valve could announce soon is of course still coffee guesswork. Nevertheless, there are a few devices that seem realistic to us.
Of course, a new version of Steam Deck would be the first thing that comes to mind. Especially considering possible competition in the form of Nintendo’s Switch 2, that sounds likely.
But the VR market is apparently still interesting for Valve as well. Thus, they shared in the past that they would like to release their own standalone device – info on a prototype codenamed Deckard came to light in 2021.
What do you think? Is Valve working on a new Steam Deck with better hardware? Is the Steam developer taking another crack at Meta with a new VR goggle? Or are you hoping for an entirely new product category from the company? If so, what would it be? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
