The steam deck is also the reason why we’re hearing so much about an Xbox handheld/hybrid. OEM partners are screaming at Microsoft to make a mobile UI because they want their products to sell and they don’t want to spend the r&d to develop one. Steam deck is already crushing it’s competition even when it’s using an older chipset and less powerful hardware due to the ease of use of the product.

Valve struck gold in a product market that has predominantly been high priced mobile PC’s from companies like GDP, largely due to the fact that they have no obligations on licensing costs and are using their own OS. I wouldn’t put past Microsoft to try and capitalize on ARM and the handheld market at the same time and push out some ARM based Xbox handheld that’s capable of XCloud streaming and x86/ARM compatibility to fight Apple and Valve. Of course this also means anti cheat makers will need to build compatibility into their products for those handhelds, or else Microsoft will have the same problem Valve has with SteamOS.