It most likely won't impact it at all, even if handheld PCs are getting more affordable.

Possibly, but still not enough to make any noteworthy dent in sales.

Keep in mind I am a PC gamer... And yes we PC gamers tend to be happy to "spend more" for that privilege, but we also often buy consoles.

I think people forget that Grand Theft Auto was actually a PC game first in 1997.
The PS1 then got a release after that.

Actually, many tent-pole console games were PC first.
FarCry, Crysis, Doom, Wolfenstein, Elder Scrolls (Skyrim), Minecraft, Fallout, PUBG, Diablo, Call of Duty, Unreal/Unreal Tournament, Quake and more.

Not much. If anything, the Switch might bet better support, since if devs start tayloring their titles for handheld PCs, a Switch port should be even easier.

I mean even a tiny amount of people deciding to not buy the successor due to its increase in popularity would make it slight instead of non-existent but I suppose I should've included it as an option to cover more opinions.

Depends on what you mean by noteworthy dent but I do think it's unlikely to be significant for at least a while and I was more referring to GTA 5 and eventually GTA 6 but yeah you're right many probably don't know that.

Barely, if at all.

What they could learn from it is that users seem to be okay with some heavier handheld device and/or a higher price if the performance is there. But I doubt they'll do something in that direction.

Nintendo doesn't even bother to look at what Sony/MS are doing for multiple decades now, lol, don't think handheld PCs will really influence them much. I'm sure they probably do have a couple of Steamdecks at Nintendo's R&D offices and have looked at it though.

As mentioned above Steamdeck might actually even somewhat help Nintendo, if PC devs start to make games with a Steamdeck performance profile in mind, that performance profile will likely be easier to port to a Switch successor.

The Switch successor chipset I also think is largely finished or close to being finished too, so I don't really know how much they would change/alter at this point. Nintendo and Nvidia likely began development on it years ago (2018 or 2019).  

As for your question, "how much will handheld PC gaming impact the Switch's successor?", the answer is, it depends on the point of view. Since you didn't mention what kind of an impact would that be, I could say at least two things. One is saleswise, and I guess the impact in sales would be minimum, even if people like myself might skip, for example, upgrading my OG Switch to an OLED model in case I'm able to put my hands on a Deck. It dents Nintendo in sales, albeit minimally. Another impact is techwise, and this is much more wishful thinking from myself than anything else, but if the capabilities of the Steam might serve as a parameter, Nintendo should at least consider it as a bare minimum output for what the Switch's successor should be able to run in 2 or 3 years from now. Otherwise I could really consider skipping their next system to wait for the next Deck, thus coming back to the sales dent from the earlier example. These are the main hypotheses of "impact" that I consider relevant, at least for now.

Where is the poll option "Non-existent"?

Handheld gaming PCs won't put much of any dent to the Switch/ Switch Successor's success.

People are primarily buying the Switch to play Nintendo games on the TV and on the Go. Something like the Steam Deck can't conveniently offer.

I hear alot of people hyping up the fact that the Steam Deck could "emulate Switch games" and how it could make the Switch useless. However, a vast majority of people do not know or want to know how to emulate games on a Handheld gaming PC as for many people the process of emulating games seems to complicated with too many steps for the average consumer to want to deal with. If emulating Switch games on a Steam Deck was that easy then we should see people choosing the Steam Deck over the Switch since it has ALL the multiplats and Switch games but we aren't.

For fucks sake many people didn't even know the Wii U existed you think that they'll know or want to know how to emulate Switch games on a handheld gaming PC?? Hell no, the average consumer would 99.9999/100 times rather just skip the hassle of trying to emulate games and just buy a Switch.

Yes Handheld gaming PCs will likely be more powerful that the Switch which pretty much all the multiplats with some not coming to Switch. However, most people won't buy a handheld PC over a Switch because:

-People don't want to spend that kind money on a portable only device that could only play games that they could already get on PS/Xbox/PC and even switch at times.

When did u guys start to assume the successor of the Switch was a better Switch? We're getting an 8DS baby