Valve did such a good job learning from the original Steam boxes too. The controller was weird, but the best parts lived in in the Steam Deck and the new controller. The incompatibility issues with the original Steam OS showed how critical getting Proton right would be the Steam ecosystem. Multiple SKUs made it harder to verify compatibility, so now they have just 1 for each hardware type. A dedicated Steam Link box was kind of a waste, but now Steam Link works great on Android TV, Android phones, and on Steam itself.

Many other companies just abandoned their failures, but Valve took the time to analyze the “why” and salvage the good parts to them. No company is perfect, but kudos to them.