Something that I don't think folks consider the perspective of is that the big console manufacturers often act in the same vein that third party DRM/Anti-Tamper firms like Denuvo do in establishing relationships with publishers. Part of the value proposition with releasing on a console is that the platform provides a reasonable duty to protect sales, and they incentivize that themselves by the sales structure. Most consoles are sold at a loss, with revenue being made up largely through title sales. This puts the game publisher and the console manufacturer on the same team in ensuring that sales are protected, and as such decisions are made to tightly control what software can run on these otherwise incredibly powerful, compact machines.
Do want to clarify, I personally don't think it's the right play overall, but it's the play Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been making for years. Now let's look at Valve.
Valve took their distribution platform, which already runs in lawless country on the largely unrestricted platform of PCs, and made a console experience for that with Steam Deck. Valve isn't incentivized to lock down the Deck any more than a PC is locked down, which is to say not very much at all. As a result, they can much more easily advocate for Right to Repair, modding, software customization, the works, because their existing market dominance as the biggest PC games distributor gives them that weight to throw around.
I'm happy that Valve isn't locking down Deck to customization in anticipation of shifting winds to get folks to target the platform, but we really can't call this an apples-to-apples comparison. Two very different companies with two very different histories of deal making with game publishers having latitude to do two very different styles of hardware control.
Do want to clarify, I personally don't think it's the right play overall, but it's the play Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been making for years. Now let's look at Valve.
Valve took their distribution platform, which already runs in lawless country on the largely unrestricted platform of PCs, and made a console experience for that with Steam Deck. Valve isn't incentivized to lock down the Deck any more than a PC is locked down, which is to say not very much at all. As a result, they can much more easily advocate for Right to Repair, modding, software customization, the works, because their existing market dominance as the biggest PC games distributor gives them that weight to throw around.
I'm happy that Valve isn't locking down Deck to customization in anticipation of shifting winds to get folks to target the platform, but we really can't call this an apples-to-apples comparison. Two very different companies with two very different histories of deal making with game publishers having latitude to do two very different styles of hardware control.