I never owned a Switch, but I would say it was instrumental in the Deck’s conception. If the popularity of the Switch had never happened, I wonder if Gabe would have taken the chance.

Nintendo cuts all kinds of corners and usually doesn’t bother competing as a “performance” console, but people generally loved that thing when it first came out. I’m sure people will have gripes about Steam Deck v1 when v2+ comes out, too.