I’m very intrigued by the Steam Deck. Taking PC games and putting them into a Switch-like format sounds irresistible if the system can do everything Valve is claiming it can. No, it won’t be able to run the latest and greatest AAA PC games at maximum settings, but it will be able to run older games that have been sitting in gamer’s backlogs for years at maximum settings, and it will be fantastic for indie games. The Steam Deck doesn’t need to work as seamlessly as the Switch, but if it does what Valve says it can do, it should work as seamlessly as playing my Steam games on my laptop.

The Steam Deck is not going to upend the Switch, but it will be great for PC gaming and great for portable gaming if it succeeds, and it has the potential to be the competition Nintendo needs for them to be at their best.

Nintendo hasn’t faced a competitor like Valve before. They’re not newcomers to the video game industry the way Sony and Microsoft were when they released their first consoles. Although Valve’s past forays into making video game hardware haven’t fared well, Steam is by far the biggest digital video game retailer in the world, and they also happen to be a formidable video game developer and publisher.

A criticism I’m seeing online is that the Steam Deck won’t have an exclusive killer app that will send systems flying off shelves like the Switch did with Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That’s a fair point, but underestimates what Steam offers as a platform. If you took the totality of the Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One’s library combined, it still wouldn’t equal the size and breadth of what Steam offers. Steam’s game library is colossal, and the games are generally cheaper with all the sales that are constantly run on the platform. Not to mention that both Sony and Microsoft have both recently pledged to put all their AAA first-party games on Steam for the foreseeable future.

It also doesn’t take into consideration that if Valve were to announce something like Half-Life 3 exclusive to Steam and the Steam Deck, it would be monumental for the system. Half-Life 3’s announcement alone would melt the internet. With Valve making video games again, coupled with this announcement of new hardware, they could be putting the pieces in place to seriously shake things up.

I want the Steam Deck to succeed and I want it to be able to do everything Valve says it can. If it does and if it can, it could drastically change things for PC gaming and for portable gaming. Hopefully, Nintendo will take notice, and this will push them a little harder to make their future Switch hardware that much better. Nintendo fans, fans of PC gaming, and fans of portable gaming should all be rooting for the Steam Deck. Competition in the marketplace is a good thing, and if it succeeds, gamers will reap the rewards.