Curated list of games the Steam Machines will never play out of the box.
- Fortnite
- Call of Duty/Warzone multiplayer
- Roblox
- Apex Legends
- EA Sports multiplayer
- GTA Online
- MLB The Show
- NBA 2K multiplayer
- Destiny 2
- Minecraft
and that right there is potentially a HUGE issue.
also you are missing
Valorant and essentially every EA game, such as
Battlefield 6
I think this is less of an issue on the Steam Deck, because at that power profile, and on those handheld controls it's not that amazing to compete with people using proper controllers or a mouse.
I have played Apex Legends (back when it was still supported on Linux) on the Deck, and while it ran at 60~90fps, the bulkiness, the sticks and the bumpers alone made it hard to keep up with other players.
but on a Console/PC on a monitor, with a proper controller and/or mouse, these games are far more playable and more likely to be in demand by people buying a console/pc hybrid box thingy.
so you'd either need to switch and install Windows, or dual-boot windows for it to play some of the biggest PC games currently available.
not being able to play Fortnite, Apex, Battlefield and Call of Duty is a dealbreaker for many I bet.