Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before.

SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers.

Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant of a lot of spec and price variety. Any slip up by Sony and Microsoft in specs and price will result in steam machine variants carving away market share, which could force more frequent console releases.

The steam machine will almost certainly come in at a higher price point than the PS5, but with no 'online' subscription charge and reasonably priced storage upgrades we may see these revenue streams disappear from the next console generation in order to compete.

SteamOS isn't perfect, and the variety inherent in the platform that is a strength is also a weakness. The core markets for Nintendo and for Sony aren't going anywhere.

My main game console right now is one of those little gaming boxes you can buy on Amazon for about $400, where I have installed NixOS + Jovian to get the "SteamOS" interface.

I really like it. It really does feel like a "game console"; usually when I've made my own console using Linux, it always feels kind of janky. For example, RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi is pretty cool, but it doesn't feel like a proper commercial product, it feels like a developer made a GUI to launch games.

I have like 750 games on Steam that I have hoarded over the years, in addition to the Epic Games Store and GOG, which can be installed with Heroic, and the fact that I can play them on a "console" instead of a computer makes it much easier to play in my living room or bedroom. It even works fine with the Xbox One controllers; I use the official Microsoft USB dongle to minimize latency, it works great.

I think there actually is a chance that Valve could really be a real competitor, if not a winner.

Steam on Linux works really well now. I sort of built my own steam machine a few months back with a framework desktop that now sits in my TV rack. Gaming on it is a really good experience. Had to buy a PS5 controller though because I could not get the XBOX controller to work over bluetooth which was a bit of a bummer. For me the new controller is most interesting as most games have XBOX controller support (with xbox button captions) and the steam controller adopts the button naming.

Yeah I mean... can I play Fortnite, BF6 or the upcoming GTA on steamOS?