The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

Sounds like the Switch 2 might be a bit more powerful and similarly priced to the 3-year-old Deck. But even if Switch’s hardware feature set was substantially better, Steam’s much cheaper (and more expansive) library is still the killer feature. I don’t think the Switch 1’s Zelda launch title has ever been discounted lower than $40 despite being 8 years old. On Steam, virtually every top title will be 50% within 2 years, if not 1.

My impression is that the general quality of games on steam is sub par the quality of, eg., Zelda.

Even with a steam deck, I am probably going to get the Switch2, mostly because I can lower my head on in-game profiteering, which is increasingly prevalent on steam games.

> My impression is that the general quality of games on steam is sub par the quality of, eg., Zelda.

An impossibly high bar given that the Zelda games are some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.

It's not impossible... it happened once already, in 1986 with the release of Legend of Zelda 1. And it keeps happening with every new Nintendo console release where a new Zelda comes along.

You can absolutely make a game to the quality of Zelda as an indie developer.