Xbox consoles and games are becoming rare finds at major retailers. Workers confirm that Walmart and Target locations are clearing out inventories and have no plans to restock the products. Repeated Xbox price increases have made the brand less desirable for businesses and consumers.
  • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    6 hours ago

    Here’s a question. For ages back, the console market had three contenders. Who do you think would compete in the trifecta between Nintendo and Sony?

    Normally, PC markets stay aside from that conversation, but it might be Valve and the Steam Deck. I’m just not sure if Valve is the type to be interested in running big promotions at Wal-Mart by Mountain Dew displays.

    • tmyakal@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      I don’t think Valve really wants to be in the hardware market. That said, with the success of the Steam Deck and the numerous Deck-alikes like the ROG Ally or Legion Go, I have to believe they’ll try to talk manufacturers into doing a Steam Machine 2 at some point.

      • Natanael@infosec.pubEnglish
        3·
        2 hours ago

        Current Valve is trying to do what Google used to do with the Nexus phones. They’re setting a minimum standard for other companies and showing what the experience can be like.

        After the next Steam Deck version (which they’re supposedly doing in-house) I suspect they’re going to get OEMs to make each following iteration, just like what Google used to do after the first few Nexus versions

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      4 hours ago

      That is a tricky question to answer, because the PlayStation and the Switch serve fundamentally different use cases, and there’s only a small amount of crossover between the two game libraries. If you want to play Nintendo games, you’ll get a Switch. If you don’t care about Nintendo games, you’ll get a PlayStation. They’re only superficially competing, and many console gamers will end up owning both.

      • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 hours ago

        There was still back and forth between PlayStation and Xbox. For the PS3, Sony went bonkers on architecture, and as a result Xbox won a lot of players. With the Xbox One, they made stupid plays on TV access and always-online, and Sony succeeded against their foot-shooting. Then, with the Series S|X, Xbox still lost but won back some consumers by introducing service-based game rental, which Sony followed suit on later.

        The two have bettered each other by serving as competition to capitalize on the other’s anti-consumer actions, and by at least competing on pricing and ideas. Imagine if people called out the Xbox One’s always online, but PlayStation didn’t exist.

        “lol, too bad gamers”