Brawler Yukon

Fair points, yes, but I was speaking within the context of companies that are actually producing handheld PCs. None of the other potentially capable companies you’ve mentioned have shown any indication that they care to enter the space.

The big question with that plan, though, is what’s in it for Valve/Epic? Valve has no incentive to let anyone else in on their cut, and Epic’s is so low already there wouldn’t be any room to let anyone else in on it with them.

I suppose Epic could try to get a deal in place where EGS is installed as the default store on the Ally or Legion, but it’s not like anyone’s going to just stick with the default - first thing anyone will do is just install Steam, and everyone knows it. I don’t see a way for a deal like that to make sense for Epic to even bother with.

Author can’t seem to understand that Valve’s the only company that can properly do the console-style “subsidize hardware cost based on the cut you’ll get from selling the games” method in the PC space. Asus, Lenovo, Ayaneo - they don’t have the luxury of maybe taking a bit of a haircut on the hardware and then more than making it up on the back end via software sales. They only get paid for the initial sale and then they’re done, so their devices are going to have to be more expensive.

Why should it matter which launcher I use?

This is answered in the OP article itself:

Why don’t some publishers do this? The reasoning is pretty simple really: Valve take a cut of all sales on Steam, including DLC and micro-transactions. So if you purchased directly before, publishers will want to keep you there so any extras you purchase don’t get a cut eaten by Valve.

It looks more modern

Not OP, but as an old.lemmy.world user myself, this is not a selling point.

i just want to know how people think this could work in a way that balances out

They don’t. They just think content is generated in a vacuum and it’s their right to consume it in whatever way they see fit.

They’re still doing it, albeit in a slightly pared back fashion.

Not really good enough, honestly. Backpedal further, guys, you’re almost there.

The speculation for a while (and, frankly, the direction I’d love to see them go in) is that the work on the Deck was going to be a stepping stone to a standalone VR headset. Take what they learned in VR with the Index and then what they learned in portable PCs with the Deck and slap the two together to get a real Quest competitor out there.

There’ve even been numerous leaks over the years (even pre-Deck) about a standalone headset internally labeled “Deckard”.