I guess I have to put my foot in my mouth over a comment I made a month or so back. I had said an XBOX handheld would sell out against the Steam Deck simply due to brand recognition.

This was of course before I thought they’d be dumb enough to make a console twice as expensive aimed at the mass market. If this was targeted at the same price as the Deck, they might have had a chance.

I don’t know anyone that would consider one of these now.

Shit I dont know anyone who can afford this. No one in my work or friend group has a Steam Deck or Switch 2. Nearly 20 people all of us of us have ps5, XsX, or switch 1. 6 have a pc that can run the latest games without chugging. Not even the scalper guy at work has gotten a Switch2 to flip.

$1000 consoles and $100 games…here we come I guess. I’m so tired of fighting this fight. One of the tenants of capitalism is that you, the consumer, should demand more-for-less. It doesn’t matter that you got a good deal already. It is a consumers duty to demand a product for less, or even free. People have grown complacent and lazy with this duty - misinformation and complacency, and a culture that promotes both “fuck you I got mine” and “overpaying is a flex” has allowed prices to rocket under greedflation.

One of the tenants of capitalism is that you, the consumer, should demand more-for-less

Oh dear, that was never a tenet of capitalism. Capitalism has only one tenet: amass as much capital as possible at all costs. Literally anything goes, including and especially capturing and controlling markets by stifling competition.

It’s a natural byproduct though. Assuming a free enough market, you should have several people all supplying the same good. Some will compete on price, some on quality, and some on overall service.

The problems happen when competition evaporates, either from regulations raising the barrier to entry, acquisitions, or resource scarcity. Capitalism assumes people are greedy and pits them against each other to provide better services to everyone. A lack of competition isn’t “capitalism functioning as intended,” but instead the opposite, it means something is preventing capitalism from working as intended.

It also requires perfectly rational actors with perfect information. If they can suppress information about competition or manipulate you to have loyalty then it doesn’t work, and both of these happen constantly.