You're listing the losers in the market, the ones that had to drop prices to make sales. The real volume sellers weren't generally sold at a loss. Most Nintendo consoles were never sold at a loss. Sony often sold at a loss in the first year or so, but their redesigns made them profitable, and the vast majority of sales happened after redesigns. Moore's law was responsible for a large portion of the profits from hardware sales.
Okay. That doesn't conflict with their point. "No one had to sell at a loss... Except every non-market leader" only proves their point.
>, but their redesigns made them profitable
No one says consoles always sell at a loss. They are sold over 6-8 years and price drops are pretty conservative (until last gen where they ceased to be). Every conse eventually becomes profitable, but not in the years where they sell the most.
Nope. Take 1 example, the PS3. It lost money in 2007 & 2008, but became profitable in 2009. They sold 16 million PS3's in 2007 and 2008 out of a total 87 million. So approximately 20% of PS3's were sold at a loss.
And the PS3 is perhaps the console that was sold at the biggest loss at the beginning due to the horrendously expensive Cell chip.
It's kind of moot, anyways. The discussion is about the consoles of 2026 competing against Steam Machine. The PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2 are all currently being sold for positive margin.
The ps3 was certainly a unique case, because despite selling at a loss it still wasn't a competitive price. The infamous "599 USD" now translates to 950 dollars today, so that really shows you how utterly expensive it was (when the PS5 pro just needed to price hike to $800).so it coming down in price for consumers and manufacturers helped it immensely.
But I do believe that was a unique case. Consoles don't typically "come back" later in life. The vita later on didn't. The Wii U and Xbox one didn't. The dreamcast sure didn't. Sony's big turnaround should be praised, but not accepted as a norm of business.
Yes, I'm aware on how consoles are monetized. They take a loss in the first few years and make up for that with software sales, which they take a 30% cut on.
I'm not dispelling if the model isn't profitable, I'm simply stating that the hardware is historically sold at razor thin margins early on, if not outright a loss (until this generation)
4 consoles 2 handhelds, and a hybrid (switch). I have no clue if the gameboy and DS were actually sold at a loss. These were pre-smartphone devices sold more like toys, so I can see them being manufactured for very cheaply in a pre-smartphone era with minimal peripheral requirements.
> That practice started with PS1 / XBox and ended with PS4/XBone.
Okay, fair enough. Atari and NES were very expensive for their time. Nintendo had a few generations to itself to revive the industry and I'm thankful, but I'm also glad their blunder ended up creating competiton in the market.
One of my pet peeves is how people get so dismissive about limiting their battery charge. People will even get defensive, as if it is a personal attack or something. Empirical evidence has shown time and time again that it is a-matter-of-fact that stopping charge at 80% will prolong a lithium-ion battery. [1][2][3]
I mean, it’s one thing to be believe that it is “too inconvenient” or that “life’s too short to micromanage my phone battery”, and another to blatantly spread lies that stopping charge at 80% is a “myth” with no benefit. And maybe that “micromanagement” argument was true 5 years ago, but nowadays nearly every device can automatically limit charge levels, e.g.:
iPhone 15 and above
iPhone 14 and below with a smart-plug[4]
Most Samsung phones/tablets
Sony phones/tablets
Any rooted Android
Any decent EV
Windows: Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Microsoft laptops
MacOS through AlDente[5]
Linux: TLP for most manufacturers[6]
And honestly if your device can’t automatically limit charge, I concede it probably isn’t worth the micromanagement. But those kinds of devices have small, cheap, and easy to replace batteries anyway.
It’s a heck of a lot different to drive to the Apple Store and spend $250 for a MacBook battery versus the $30 battery and half hour of work for Nintendo Switch.
Any Android phone will be spied on by Google so long as Play Services are installed with elevated privileges(aka 99.9% of phones being commerically sold). At least with Pixels you don't have OEM bloatware on top of that.
For those inclined for more privacy, Pixels are one of the only phones that allow you to install de-googled Custom Roms without compromising the Android security model.
The parent comments are talking about phone operating systems not hardware. And Microsoft is failing in that front, the Surface Duo missed it's target date for the Android 11 update multiple times. It didn't receive a11 until 4 months after Android 12 released. If they can't even keep Android up to date, there's no chance of them developing a separate mobile operating system.
> What do you attribute that to? Is it software updates that slow it down or some kind of pile up of junk that somehow slows it down like Windows 95 used to get?
I'll add that in addition to software, Android hardware typically experience more NAND degradation, which can slow the phone down. A possible explanation being that iPhones use NVMe storage vs the cheaper eMMC/UFS type found on Android.
IMO I think that it is more about the content of the book then the device it is stored on. Especially with a Kindle(the e-ink variety, not the LCD tablets) it is a single purpose device that looks near identical to a physical book. Of course if someone is reading on a modern internet device there is always the possibility of getting of losing mental concentration, but that is less so on a dedicated e-reader like a Kindle.
Sega lost money on every console prior to exiting the market.
Nintendo sold various consoles at a loss (Wii U).
The PlayStation 1 through 4 sold either at a loss or break even.