Valve is in a pure win-win situation. The popularity of the Deck has led to an explosion in PC handhelds. Even if they take it easy, they have shown there is a market for people wanting to play their pc games on the go (or just in this form factor). Even if they’re not exactly buying the SD, Steam is still the choice storefront for devices like the Ally , Go, and the 50,000 smaller companies (Ayaneo, GPD etc.). I initially bought my Ally for GamePass and found myself buying more games on Steam .
I think internal docs showed that Microsoft is leaving that to other vendors. I have the Legion go and it’s been amazing with GamePass. But I’m starting to buy more games on Steam now 😂