It does look very appealing: it could become a Switch with the whole PC library available. Damn cool.
But now with Proton most problems I have are caused by hardware/driver incompatibilities. Which is exactly what Valve can get rid of by launching their own hardware which is actually built and tested primarily for Proton. That's why I'm really hoping this takes off. I'd honestly have preferred a stationary device, but now that the Switch is the only serious portable console they might be able to build a market there. Especially as people can just keep using their Steam library.
Too true. Steam Machines solved a problem for Valve (existential fear of a Windows store built into Windows), but didn't really solve any problem for the bulk of their customers (existing windows users).
For me personally, I value the openness and out-of-the-box hackability of this device very much and it will likely be the first handheld gaming device I'll buy since the Nintendo DS. I'm interested to see if that sentiment is shared more widely as well.
That's the problem proton does not run all the games.
It's not perfect, but it sounds like a much better deal than the Steam Machines which didn't really offer any additional value to anyone and were much more limited.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Switch_games_...
I installed Steam on Debian sid via Flathub / Flatpak, and then installed https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom using their flatpak instructions as well.
Honestly, it has never been easier to get a version of proton that makes gaming on linux seamless. Of course, I understand "run these terminal commands" is the usual defensive linux nerd^H^H^H^H coward's reaction, but installing Steam and this package from flatpak and then going from there is a _vast_ improvement from yester-years. I've been fairly happy with it, and I didn't have to do any actual compiling / building!