Yeah... I hope the Nintendo Switch port is brought to Steam Deck too. I gave Factorio a quick go a few days ago and it was painful to play (at least with the default key config)
The blog post says they will focus on making controller play better on Switch, then make that generic for PC(which implies Steam Deck as well). The PC/Steam Deck version supports mods, which is better than Switch anyway.
Do you happen to know what the status of the Steam Deck ecosystem is? I would be in the market to get a more powerful version of the Switch, which the Steam Deck would be, but it seems to be discontinued.
The Steam Deck is not discontinued. It's actually quite new, with the first shipments going out to normal customers at the beginning of this year, and more and more going out now. I got mine in June. Valve made a reservation process that required an old enough Steam account and $5 refundable reservation to avoid scalpers.
Regarding the ecosystem, the Steam Deck is a x86 PC. It comes with SteamOS, which is an open Arch Linux based distribution. You are free to install other operating systems like Windows on it. The out of the box Steam experience is quite good, with lots of games on the Verified list[0], and they play really well. People also install non-Steam games and software, including console emulators, and there are growing communities around that.
Steam deck can be a bit of work doing things like getting epic games to run, file transfers, and setting up the controls for games that aren't fully supported. Many games work flawlessly like they're on switch, though. It depends on whether occasional issues that force you to tinker are fun or not.
Elden Ring plays well. I don't plan on using my switch OLED until the next Zelda comes out.
