I don’t recall if it was mandatory during setup or not. I can control it locally when the internet is down, at least from the wall, I don’t think the app would work. But again, I wanted the remote features so I didn’t even try to set it up without an account.
Home assistant may work as well, but I don’t use it.
Nintendo doesn’t sell at a loss.
This argument only takes inflation into account and the cost of making the games, while ignoring that games sell many more copies than in the past. Gaming is much more popular than in the N64 era.
Say you need to make $100 to break even. If you can assume a third of console owners will buy. Say 300 people own the console, you can sell for $1 and make the hundred.
Now say games are more expensive to make, you need $300 to break even. But now there’s 1000 people that own the console. With the same third buying your game at $1 you’re now making $333.
Edit: why is my 3 showing as a 1? Is this a sync formatting issue or something with lists in lemmy?