They can hardly avoid screwing up, really.
The whole draw of Steam Deck is that it’s a carefully curated experience where everything from the OS upwards is crafted to play nicely together and “Just Work” to bring that console-like experience to PC gaming.
Whatever Microsoft are putting together isn’t going to have that end-to-end consideration. It will be nothing more than a skinned launcher on top of Windows 11, and no matter how shiny that launcher looks you won’t be able to hide from Windows for long. All the normal Windows bloat will be there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you spend as much time messing around in actual Windows as you do playing games.
“I can’t wait for my PC to load the classic Windows UI elements, the Metro elements AND THIS NEW UI all at the same time regardless of what applications I’m running. It’s not going to put unnecessary strain on the hardware or introduce annoying bugs and instability at all!” -Somebody, probably.
They tried doing something that would have fit with Windows 8 and they ROYALLY screwed that up.
I don’t know how you don’t think about how people that use Windows Server and how they have difficulties reaching the start menu. Seriously, trying to go into the top left or side with your mouse makes no sense. They have so many project managers, QA and process and somehow they screwed up that hard.
They tried doing something that would have fit with Windows 8 and they ROYALLY screwed that up.
Honestly, they were onto something, but instead of polishing it, or even just starting over, they just abandoned it entirely, never to be revisited.
