@beardalaxy The development of must have taken quite a while since by the time it released it was already a generation behind. Or maybe it was to hit that extremely low price.
@beardalaxy The Switch uses Nvidia's Tegra X1 which released in 2015 (but I assume Nintendo had it sooner), but in 2016 Tegra X2 got released which has a similar thermal and power profile, but better performance per watt. It would be possible and imo wouldn't require much board changes.
I looked over the specs now and I think I know why as Nintendo has done it before several times.
X1 on top of being older architecture it also uses DDR3 which further lowers the cost. I wouldn’t say they focus on ideas, but that they are great at balancing ideas, quality and price.
Well Steam Deck is kind of an issue of architecture, only now x86 chips got efficient enough. A big company could have built a Steam Deck a while ago, but nobody would buy it because it would be too shit to run anything, so you would have to get game devs to make exclusives and at that point you are better off not doing x86 but ARM, which is the Switch.