There’s a reason for that, and it’s more than the usual Valve fanboyism. The Deck is objectively a better user experience than the alternatives, Steam Input is a masterpiece, Linux runs games better than Windows now (thanks, Gabe), and the community around it is friendly and super helpful to everyone.
Even a device with better specs will have trouble surpassing the Deck if they can’t cover these areas as well.
Not necessarily. There are examples of good games based on sci-fi franchises that aren’t riddled with shitty micro transactions. Starship Troopers: Extermination is a good example. It’s a base-building online cooperative FPS, and it’s actually a lot of fun. Surprisingly, even though you almost always play with strangers, (unless you have sixteen friends all ready to play) everyone has pretty good teamwork. I often see small groups sortie out in precise strikes into the bug horde to revive downed team mates.
The fact that this game exists, and is also being made by a smaller dev studio, never ceases to amaze me. This is a franchise that has produced several movies, video games, and related media. You wouldn’t expect the rights to something like this to be given to anyone but a big AAA publisher who can fork out a ton of money.
It shouldn’t be, but here’s the thing. Valve isn’t distributing games out of the goodness of their own heart. They don’t want to have to process refunds for every person who buys it and realizes they aren’t allowed to play it. That’s just a waste of time and money for them. And Sony hasn’t invested in a launcher and store of their own on PC, so they’ve got no choice but to obey whatever conditions Valve puts on the sale of their games, unless they want to pause until they get a storefront up.
That’s not entirely true, you could keep the videos up if all the ad revenue went to Nintendo. In other words, if you paid them so you could promote their game.