Valve has still not confirmed pricing or availability for the Steam Machine. In the meantime, the developer of EmuDeck is selling an alternative called Playnix, which should outperform the Steam Machine thanks to an AMD Radeon RX 9600 XT 16 GB GPU.
If the hardware has the compatibility for it, then yes
It probably is what they have in mind, but they could also go the route with some custom system. Unlikely but not impossible.
The issue if they go custom, is how much ground they’ll need to cover to reach SteamOS levels of plug 'n play
If you install SteamOS on it, wouldn’t it be as plug-and-play as the Steam Deck?
It depends if it ship with SteamOS or something similiar…if the user has to install it, it’s not plug and play
If the hardware has the compatibility for it, then yes It probably is what they have in mind, but they could also go the route with some custom system. Unlikely but not impossible.
The issue if they go custom, is how much ground they’ll need to cover to reach SteamOS levels of plug 'n play