

It really was remarkable how hated this device was at the time and I say this as one of the kids online laughing and calling it the taco gauge and ridiculing it for the side talking which lets be real isnt that egregious(and actually in what is likely intentional design the shell around the screen when placed to ear looks a lot like a side profile of an old phone). I do sometimes think back to it and how in hindsight it was just a smartphone that played games.
It was a little too ahead of it’s time.
Its not specifically hard but its also not just as easy to use. I say this as someone whos been gaming on linux for over a decade now. You still run into issues here and there with proton(often a devs fault for bad code) and there is genuinely a lot more going on and tweakable on the steamdeck.
Steamdeck is a great device but Nintendo is good at making simple systems