Nintendo has always found itself unique in the game industry and Steam Deck would not hurt it in any way. Steam deck my bow out.

  I agree they are are aimed at different audiences so to sum it up it amounts to different strokes for different folks.

It won't make a dent at all. Valve is very poor supporting hardware. They abandon it fast.

I doubt it would any harm because it cost more than the switch and battery life is anywhere between 2 to 8 hours. More demanding game like control will last 2 hours which is not good battery life

Yes and it's not supposed to. Steam Deck vs Switch is similar to PC vs Consoles in the sense that yes, both can play games but that doesn't mean PC takes away from console sales.

The Steam Deck is for those who want more than what the Switch offers and those that have the money to pay for it. Not as a competitor but as more of an enthusiast device. You can see this in not only the price but in design as it's not targeting something that "the whole family can enjoy" but rather the PC gamers that can make use of all it's functionality. You can give the switch to your kid, to your grandma and whoever and they can easily pick it up and play. The Steam Deck on the other hand, you need some amount of PC knowledge to really make use of it and that's not a bad thing. It's why I already own a Switch and I pre-ordered a Steam Deck.

The steam deck isn't even trying to be competition with the Switch. Its a mini handheld PC that allows Valve to leverage their eco system in a handheld device. I am not even sure why the switch comes up in the discussion. Besides from form factor that's pretty much about it between the 2 devices. This is purely aimed at the PC crowd which I might add is pretty big. It gives that group a pretty good piece of hardware in a handheld size and form factor and allow them to leverage their steam library. I also believe this is valve trying to get more traction with their Proton OS. If they are able to sell a good big of hardware, they can get more game support for their OS and thus build on that for their next iteration.

It won't even hurt Switch OLED. Not by much at least. The thing about Nintendo consoles and even upgrades is they are purchased by people who want Nintendo games. The upgrades might be new users, or they could be users upgrading. Either way, it isn't a market that the Steam Deck is part of. Yes it has a few playstation games and a lot of Xbox games. But no one has actually come close to Nintendo in the portable market, the closest one was the PSP, which was still outsold almost two to one.

I think this is a great product. Even the Vita). But no one put a dent in Nintendo's marketshare. This won't either.

Welp, it cost Nintendo at least one sale. I was planning to get the OLED Switch just for shits and giggles, but now I'm getting the 512GB Steam Deck instead. =P

But yeah, in the end, it doesn't matter. There is no real competition here, we're talking about two ridiculously different devices. Plus, Valve doesn't even have the logistics to compete with Nintendo. They will be lucky if they can manage to produce a million units in the first year. There is really no point in comparing the two. So just don't do it.

My personal opinion: Both are great devices and if you're a passionate gamer and have the option, you should totally get both of them.

Just because it looks like a Switch doesn't mean that it competes with a Switch. If anything it competes with Xbox and PS5 because there is no handheld equivalent of those. In fact, you could say there is a big gap in portable gaming outside of Nintendo's target audience - the PSP was 10+ years ago.

As far as the Steam Deck is concerned, we'll have to see what Valve do with it. Even the subset of Steam games that are appropriate for the hardware is a huge library (I'm bored of the argument "23 games that I bought five years ago and don't play anymore won't work on it")... At some point Valve could hit gold with a console.

I agree in one sense

There are gaming enthusiasts this year who already have a Switch and were looking to potentially upgrade to an OLED. They may now instead be looking at buying a Steam Deck instead of a Switch OLED.

However, the Switch OLED will be supply contraint this year anyway, another audience will easily fill their spot in the qeueus this holiday. Long term many of the same enthusiasts will probably buy a Switch OLED at some later point, but even if not it won't make a material difference to Switches LT sales. Maybe a million or so sales it would have acheieved through resales, it could loose out to other new devices. When your life total is 140m+, 1m loss of sales during your end of life isn't really competition.