I don’t quite understand the criticism. It’s not gonna be top of the line, but it’s more than enough to replace my dying laptop from 2015 that I pretty much only ever use like a desktop anyway. And I can save myself the time and effort of picking parts, building, and dealing with shit not working as expected.
Nintendo will always care, especially since you can easily currently install emulators on stem deck, and I seriously doubt it would be impossible to install those on steam machine. Now aside from the emulation stuff, having another contender in the console market may always affect each of the companies simply because not everyone can afford all the consoles. Growing up the parents who raised me didn’t buy us a single console, so my first consoles were from the parent who only visited (divorce), in lieu of child support payments, and we generally only had one at a time until we started buying them ourselves.
If you’re on a limited budget, even with kids, you may only choose 1 or two consoles, and your choice may be the most “comprehensive”. While Nintendo makes excellent games for kids, it’s not like the PC market doesn’t have anything for kids. Plus new consoles in a market could convince publishers to expand that way too.
While true overall, I was more going for the fact that people buy Ninendo because they want to buy Nintendo rather than because they want any random console. Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft are fighting for the same consumer - someone who wants an alternative to PC gaming. Which is also what Steam Machine is.