Valve has new hardware coming with VR headset or Steam Deck refresh rumored

A new Korean radio certification listing for Valve has been found, sparking rumors about what hardware the company is cooking next.

Valve could potentially be gearing up to launch a new piece of hardware if rumors are to be believed. The Steam store owner and maker of Counter-Strike has had a new piece of hardware certified for radio in Korea.

As of right now, the only information about the device that we know is that it runs 5GHz Wi-Fi. This could be for a wireless VR transmission from a PC, or part of the new Wi-Fi chip inside a potential Steam Deck refresh.

What’s interesting about it is that not only do we not know what it is, but it could be one of two devices. For a while, Valve has been testing its successor to the Index VR headset. Speculated to be called Deckard, it is intended to be a competitor to Meta’s Quest series of headsets. This means it’d be an independently running device, with the potential to connect to a PC.

Could there be a Steam Deck refresh on the way?

Dexerto

Meanwhile, some believe that it could be a Steam Deck refresh, as some of Valve’s fresher code references Sephiroth. Valve’s custom AMD processor, Van Gogh, is often referred to as Aerith, a protagonist from Final Fantasy 7. The refresh referring to the chip now as Sephiroth indicates that there’s something else going on under the hood of the rumored device.

If it is a refresh of the Steam Deck, we don’t imagine that it’d be a complete overhaul. Speculation from The Verge seems to think that this could still be Steam Deck-related. In 2021, The Verge was told by Valve’s Greg Coomer that the APU inside the Steam Deck could be used in a VR capacity.

Valve possibly repurposing chips for VR

The theory is that Valve could be repurposing the Van Gogh chip inside the Steam Deck for the Deckard VR headset. It’s hard to do direct comparisons between the Van Gogh chip and the Snapdragon XR 2 found in the Quest 2 and Pro, but seeing as we’ve already seen the Steam Deck muscle through multiple AAA games, it’d be a worthy chip.