Interesting take. Honestly I don’t think people are ready to entertain the idea that Valve may not the consumer loving, cannot-shoot-themsleves-in-the-face billion dollar tech company their fans seem to paint them as, but to respond to your actual point…

The Steam deck is an open platform so not a guarantee that a new user will result in game sales, it’s possible (but not easy enough imo) to put your weekly free Epic games on there and forego the Steam store. Or pirated games.

Also the Switch 2 sales numbers have been huge and Nintendo have an established reputation among the general population. So they have a better relationship with parts manufacturers (can navigate lower BOMs) and are more guaranteed to make their money back. Valve have no such guarantee.

This price increase is still an obscene amount and I’ll be surprised if people still buy Steam decks going forward. Especially given the state and direction of android gaming.