I just installed SteamOS on a mini PC that costs about half what the Steam Machine does (and less than the Deck under current pricing), and runs on an AMD 7840HS with 32GB of RAM in a form-factor that’s the size of 3 stacked pieces of bread.

While that APU is likely powerful than the Steam machine’s with its dedicated VRAM, I did test a few games and it definitely outperforms the Deck and the higher system RAM makes it potentially more versatile than either.

I’d kinda love to see a comeback for optical given the supply issues for flash memory, but I’ll about that a custom USB ROM stick or SDCard style carts for PC would be kinda sick