Since the Steam Deck solidified handheld gaming PCs as a category, alternatives from Ayaneo, ROG, PowKiddy, and Lenovo have flooded the space with a raft of options. Competition and device choice has become oversaturation.
To be fair, that is a big part of what killed the steam machine. There was no consistency so nobody had any faith in it.
But that’s very different from Steamdeck where’s there’s a definite “This is what a steamdeck is” reference. If you don’t have faith in the billion of options you just use the one Valve actually made with it in mind.
How dare a customer have options. It will ruin a companies ability to charge whatever it wants
To be fair, that is a big part of what killed the steam machine. There was no consistency so nobody had any faith in it.
But that’s very different from Steamdeck where’s there’s a definite “This is what a steamdeck is” reference. If you don’t have faith in the billion of options you just use the one Valve actually made with it in mind.
Not having a reference model wasn’t great, but SteamOS was a dumpster fire until they started over with the Steam Deck.