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DudesworthMannington t1_j0cja6w wrote

Reply to comment by kshack12 in Valve answers our burning Steam Deck questions — including a possible Steam Controller 2 by retroanduwu24

It was really a solution in search of a problem. Why set up some goofy system (that also ties up your rig) to play Civ 6 in the living room?

The controller was okay, but that's the only situation where it makes sense over keyboard+mouse or a 360 controller. They really should have just adopted the 360 controller and picked a single manufacturer for the official "Steam Machine". Letting various manufacturers duke it out shot them in the foot as nobody really embraced it.

I play Lego games with my kids all the time. That's the demographic they should have shot for.

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goodnames679 t1_j0e33cp wrote

Living room gaming is a significant portion of gaming, and trying to find ways to expand the library of games that are playable on the couch wasn't a bad idea.

Everything they've done over the last couple decades - launching Steam, getting people invested in their libraries, expanding their catalogue, improving Linux support in gaming, learning about controller manufacturing, selling gaming systems - it was all basically a practice run for getting the Steam Deck on the market, and the experience they gained paid off in the long term.

As for why the controller would sell better now vs how poorly it sold back then... the assumption would be that this one was improved, and that the fact that the Steam Deck is successful while the Steam Link was a flop is probably a fairly large difference maker. Valve views Microsoft as a potential threat in the long term, which is why they're promoting Linux gaming, so there's no way they'd officially recommend giving MS money instead of buying a peripheral that puts money in their own pocket.

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