I don’t think this is a completely fair comparison. I have a Steam Deck OLED and I don’t have a PS5 or a Portal, but I can see the appeal of the Portal (though initially I thought it was kind of dumb too). The screen is bigger and higher resolution, it’s a first party device with pretty much the same ergonomics as the controller you’d be used to, and it is significantly cheaper than any OLED version of the steam deck and roughly half the price of the base model LCD steam deck (with the caveat that the 64GB LCD version can currently be had for $350 “while supplies last”).

Is the Steam Deck a great device? Absolutely! It does more than the Portal in that it can play games on its own (and is kind of a full computer), and the price of the Steam Deck is actually insanely good for what it is. The fact that you can set one up for remote play on a PS5 is also pretty cool, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if people did opt to spend a little more for a Steam Deck vs a Portal…

But realistically if you’re a busy parent or something and you just want to play your PS5 around the house (which I thought was a stupid use case, and was a reason I held off on getting a Steam Deck… But it’s actually really nice), I can totally see the appeal of just getting the Portal because it’s cheaper than a Steam Deck, has a bigger and higher resolution screen (though not OLED), won’t need any tinkering at all, and will just have the layout and features you’re used to in the controller. It’s definitely a relatively niche device, but I don’t think it’s insanely priced for what it is and I think a decent chunk of people will be happy with it… But if you’re not in the target market it might seem a little silly.