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Why isn't it?

My gut reaction is that I don't agree with you, but I can't immediately put into words why. I think it's possibly that I view a "console" for gaming as a combination of a form factor and development environment and this seems to fit that bill.

I'm interested to hear the other side though.

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To me a console comes with a lot of restrictions. Good luck loading entirely arbitrary code on your PS5. This doesn't hold as true for older consoles, but they still hardly try to help you. Getting a normal desktop session on the Deck is trivial. At that point, what's the difference between me opening Big Picture Mode on my desktop PC and calling it a console? The fact it's not a static hardware stack, I guess? I think we'll struggle to nail down what a "console" is, cause the steam deck has a lot more in common with my desktop PC, primarily used for gaming, than it does with a NES.

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