I think it's far from dead-on-arrival. I don't want to buy a PC, put it in a garage, etc. I want a little box I can easily hook up to my TV and play Steam games on. This scratches that itch. I'm old and want convenience. I know a lot of other people in my peer group who are going to pick one up too. Also I don't play any competitive games where I care about anti-cheat. I just want to play my RPG/JRPG's on a big screen and I want it to be plug-n-play.
There's better options at this price point, I'm afraid.
Even buying an old tiny micro PC that's 10th gen Intel would've been a cheaper buy.
Put it in a garage?
lmao bring up the wife factor, please.
We are devs here. We can have and build gaming PCs I hope?
Yes I will gatekeep.
Yes it is the best as I can get and play anything I want.
I think dead on arrival is too extreme but the niche is certainly hard to see. The "just works" crowd will buy consoles and the "max performance" crowd won't be happy with this value. The niche is something like "willing to tolerate some headaches but not so much as to build my own PC". That exists but seems small.
Feels like they should have gone cheap. Undercut the switch and be the cheapest way to play games on your TV. We're pretty far past performance equalling more entertainment. A 150-200 box to play indie side scrollers is a niche that exists.