I always felt their controller was a bit of a weird product. Turns out they were just dipping their toes in the water. I wonder if they are going to produce this fully in house like the controller.
I guess maybe in a world where every console controller isn't compatible with most PC games, cheaper than the valve controller and more ergonomically designed than the valve controller...maybe if Logitech, 8bitdo, Razer etc. didn't exist and didn't produce cheaper or better controllers it could have worked....
Even some games you'd think should work well with a controller don't really. Unepic's a 2d side scrolling action-adventure game, you'd think it'd be controller friendly, and there are console ports of it, but the PC version uses 10 hotkeys for various spells and abilities. I managed to map i think 4 or 5 of them to controller buttons, but it meant more going through the game menu and reassigning spells than it would have using a keyboard.
This is why I think the Deck has done it right: include all the standard buttons plus the extra stuff.