[giobox]

The impetus is it’s an obvious vehicle to sell more games via Steam? I don’t think it is any more complex than this.

AMD finally delivered a chip that can make the dream of desktop-ish performance in a handheld work. That simply wasn’t all that possible until very recently.

[balefrost]

It depends on who is buying the Steam Deck. If it's people who don't already have a PC, then sure, Valve is broadening their market. But if it's people who already have a gaming PC, then it probably won't lead to a lot of additional software sales.