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I look at the Steam Deck less as an end product and more of a means.
The Steam Deck is absolutely getting slaughtered by the Switch in terms of sales, but it gives Valve an alternative to the Windows ecosystem that is becoming more hostile as Microsoft tries to muscle in on gaming. I also think that Valve could have designed a Steam Deck variant to compete with the Switch 2, but hasn’t for various reasons
Already, Valve has the technology to create a console to compete with a PS5 and Xbox Series X, but doesn’t seem to want to.
I can’t imagine it would be that much harder to make a Chromebook equivalent, giving it access to the PC market without Windows.
Since Valve is using Linux, developing the tech stack is cheap. Also, Valve seems to be selling hardware for a profit, so it may be more comfortable with slimmer margins.
The Switch was Nintendo giving up the spec race entirely to create an ok console and good handheld device.
The Steam Deck copied the design ethos of the Switch. It is an ok gaming PC that is great for mobile gaming.
A Steam console would be slightly different, but I could see it doing well, especially if it can become an entertainment center.
To address other points, Microsoft has used Xbox as a trojan house into console gaming, using its PC gaming development to subsidize Xbox development as Sony used its hardware division to subsidize PlayStation development.
The strategic deployment of Xbox on the PC is probably the largest strategic threat to Valve and Steam, which is why Valve developed a way to play Steam games on a self controlled OS.
That may be the way consoles go.
We aren’t seeing the kinds of innovation happening in hardware that justifies dropping backward compatibility and the AAA gaming market hasn’t released games in the quantity they did before.
So Sony and Microsoft can update the hardware in a way to maintain backwards comparability and game companies have the option of developing to the current generation only, both generations with different graphics, or the older generation.
It kind of does.
You get user lock-in as users buy more games, making it so Steam is always a store to buy from. You can’t deplatform from Steam. At that point, you can’t replace Steam with another DRM platform to pay existing games. That creates a large customer base which becomes a must add for vending new games.
It isn’t a hard monopoly, but it helps create a soft monopoly.
The Nintendo 64 was really the last time Nintendo tried competing on hardware specs for the console market.
After that, you had a major electronics company subsidizing hardware to gain market share and a major software company subsidizing development and software graphics tools to be used also on their computer systems as the two different competitors.
If anything, I see this as Microsoft trying to kill what the Steam Deck can become.
Right now, the Steam Deck is one of the best selling Linux computers. You are also starting to see other manufacturers look at the Steam Deck and compete against it in hardware while using Valve’s free software. From that, it isn’t much of a jump to putting Valve’s Linux stack in desktops and laptops.
Yeah. I’m just speaking to how China would implement this law.