Switch 1 was the work of art. This one looks like the work of A/B testing and “we are losing customers as they choose Steam Deck over us, so let’s make it look like Steam Deck”
Yes this console does feel like a more “grown up” Switch but I don’t think it’s a sign of chasing after Steam Deck; switch has sold 2 orders of magnitude more copies than Valve ever will.
If anything it’s following the same pattern as Wii (white) WiiU (dark) for the successor to be a bit more serious and grown up looking.
Kids who got their Switch 1 when they were 10 are now 17, ready for a more grown up console.
In the first year Nintendo sold 13.2 million Switches. In the ~2 years since the introduction of the Steam Deck Valve has sold somewhere between 5 and 6 million units.
Nintendo had a enormous, loyal, and obsessive user base and decades of history selling portable consoles. The Steam Deck is Valve's first portable console and it's running a new OS that no one is used to. It also cost $100 more than the Switch.
Furthermore--now that the platform itself has proven itself--Valve is going to allow 3rd parties to use SteamOS on their own portable consoles. If those 3rd parties have similar successes I think Nintendo will become a minor player in the portable console market in comparison.