Is there really any demand for this kind of thing. Or is it just trying to profit from the desperation that PC gamers are showing due to lack of GPUs.
There is clearly a demand of handheld gaming devices & this is no different to any other handheld gaming device of today as well as the past, in the end this is meant to game on.
First things first, they are not going to take away any of the Nintendo customers because they don't have their catalog.
I don't think they are trying to. They know that a huge segment of folks want to get into handheld gaming but are only left with one option in the end Nintendo with their super expensive games. Not everyone is interested in Nintendo games & many of us cannot afford to buy games on two platforms. I think they are trying to capture that market.
Secondly, no PC gamer is going to get enticed by this thing and use it attached to a screen to run games at medium settings at 720p. So who are going to be the actual customers and are they going to be enough to make this a huge success.
I would love to get this thing & I am a PC gamer. It is a niche market but still plenty of folks are interested in this. I know that every game is not going to play & look the best on such a small factor device but many games will. Also, I already own a huge steam library so the only thing I have to worry about is the cost of the system & that's it as the games have already been paid for which is what steam is capitalizing on. Regarding your other point, attaching it to a screen is an option & they are not asking you to play games like that, it is just that the system if flexible enough to do that. I think this is a great thing for many of us.
So who are going to be the actual customers and are they going to be enough to make this a huge success. I highly doubt it will be mighty successful as a gaming device.
I think success of this thing only depends upon two things: 1. Software: If steam is able to successfully port/support most of their library on Linux without much of a performance loss & before its launch. Also if, through developer involvement, steam is able to create device specific visual settings which perform well that would be a big plus. 2. The hardware itself, how does it feel in hand & how well is it able to run the games. Now, they have committed that most of the games will be compatible with Linux by the launch of this device, so hopefully they will be able to deliver on that. Also, on paper the hardware itself already seems powerful enough to run most games at 720p & at such small screen size, I don't think most of the us would be able to tell the difference between medium-high & ultra quality.
If ever we needed Windows ARM devices, it was for things like these but we are still far away from it.
On the contrary, I think having a windows ARM kind of thing for such a device would have been a huge disaster. All the games on steam are based on x86 ecosystem & wouldn't work on any ARM device natively. In that case, they would have had to get every game ported by the developers which was not going to happen at all. The only other option would have been to create a compatibility layer like Rosetta on Macs which again would have had a huge performance loss involved.
Lets see how this pans out. I feel that on paper, Steam deck has potential to become something amazing but in the end it will all come down to execution.