I wish Steam offered a console format of the deck, essentially the same thing, but with better specs, HDMI out and bluetooth for controllers. Would be a massive hit I wager.
The deck already has bluetooth for controllers and HDMI out if you get a standard USB3/HDMI dongle (or their expensive dock).
Essentially all you're asking for them to add is better specs.
In December their revised branding guidelines added a "Powered by SteamOS" badge so presumably 3rd-party boxes with various specs in set-top form factors will be coming before too long:
> The Powered by SteamOS logo indicates that a hardware device will run the
SteamOS and boot into SteamOS upon powering on the device. Partners /
manufacturers will ship hardware with a Steam image in the form provided by and/or developed in close collaboration with Valve.
Better specs would also be interesting, because Steam's current "Steam Deck Verified" does check if games run well on the Steam Deck's hardware. There's another check for text size on the smaller 7" screen too.
They tried some years back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer) but it didn't really hit big. That said recent updates to SteamOS and agreements around logo/branding use hint that we're likely to see a few other options in the coming year or two (alongside some 3rd-party handhelds running SteamOS).
This is what I do, I rarely use it in handheld mode (but I do appreciate the ability to). Valve sells a dock with HDMI out (along with ethernet, USB, etc), and I can confirm that it works wirelessly with Xbox controllers.
I strongly doubt it. Steam already tried releasing a console alternative, Steam boxes, and they massively flopped. By and far the main reason for the Steam deck's success is its portable form factor, not the fact that it's a linux machine that runs games. It succeeded in spite of the software, not because of it.
The overwhelming majority of users are going to want either a "real" (read: Windows) PC, or a "real" (read: the same one their friends have) console.
This misses why the old Steam Machine was a failure: it was half baked hardware with few games that would run well on it. With the work they've put into the Steam Deck they've largely solved both of those issues, they now have a stable platform and also a sizable library of games that just work, no tinkering required.
Steam Deck succeeded where Steam Machines flopped because of nearly a decade of advancement on the Proton compatibility layer, so the catalog of eligible games is orders of magnitude larger than it was in 2015.
When Steam Machines re-launch with the current generation of Proton compatibility it will be an entirely different story.
I thought SteamOS was just some layers on top of Arch.
To not go full Dropbox, but I think if someone wants a Linux PC to run games, it is within the realm for a home PC builder to accomplish. It would otherwise be a tough market to sell, “Buy this gamer PC, less great specs than you would likely pick for yourself and not compatible with the most popular games that have onerous anti-cheat root kits”.
