Xbox consoles and games are becoming rare finds at major retailers. Workers confirm that Walmart and Target locations are clearing out inventories and have no plans to restock the products. Repeated Xbox price increases have made the brand less desirable for businesses and consumers.
I don’t think Valve really wants to be in the hardware market. That said, with the success of the Steam Deck and the numerous Deck-alikes like the ROG Ally or Legion Go, I have to believe they’ll try to talk manufacturers into doing a Steam Machine 2 at some point.
Current Valve is trying to do what Google used to do with the Nexus phones. They’re setting a minimum standard for other companies and showing what the experience can be like.
After the next Steam Deck version (which they’re supposedly doing in-house) I suspect they’re going to get OEMs to make each following iteration, just like what Google used to do after the first few Nexus versions