Back in E369, when we roadtested Steam Deck, Gabe Newell expressed his belief that Valve’s device would not only fill a crucial gap but create a new market. Here was a handheld PC that seemed set to address the shortcomings of both Switch and iPad as portable gaming devices, offering greater technological horsepower than the former while avoiding the input limitations of the latter. Not only was Valve working on future iterations of the hardware, Newell told us, but he was inviting “other vendors in the PC space to take advantage of the work we’ve done” by developing their own.
Encouraging rivals to his company’s device might have seemed counterintuitive, but it made perfect business sense. After all, any growth in the PC ecosystem would lead to more potential customers for Steam. With Deck proving a success, despite the shortcomings of its launch SKUs, it’s no surprise that rivals took Newell’s advice to heart, perhaps seeing an opportunity for improvement in their own alternatives. Logitech’s G Cloud and Asus’s ROG Ally are the latest, and perhaps most prominent, challengers to the throne – though after spending a week or so with both devices, Valve’s hardware remains the one to beat.
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