I feel like someone already mentioned this, but I admittedly really liked the way Valve handled the Steam Deck. Granted, I do NOT like how it was shipped in its actual box and also labeled with what's inside, but I think Valve actually managed a method that MOSTLY worked. Sure, some people probably conveniently has more than one account that was active for over a month, and some really just purchased it to scalp, but for the most part the Steam Deck has NOT been plagued by the bot scalping issue because their method was actually planned out AND handled at the first party company level.

Soooo, this also means this is possible for the other three as well. Sadly, this would mean many retailers would suffer the lack of "traffic" in the wake of videogame console launches, but if the Steam Deck is managing it, albeit slower than people want, I think it's possible to create a core company-to-consumer logistic that reduces the ability for greedy people to capitalize on demand. AND, truth be told, cutting out retailers likely has some financial benefit, too, that may outweigh the increased cost of handling direct-to-customer logistics. In fact, both Nintendo and Microsoft technically have the infrastructure already in place. Nintendo will have to work on their servers for sure, though, as recent events have proven at such a small scale lol

I feel like someone already mentioned this, but I admittedly really liked the way Valve handled the Steam Deck. Granted, I do NOT like how it was shipped in its actual box and also labeled with what's inside, but I think Valve actually managed a method that MOSTLY worked. Sure, some people probably conveniently has more than one account that was active for over a month, and some really just purchased it to scalp, but for the most part the Steam Deck has NOT been plagued by the bot scalping issue because their method was actually planned out AND handled at the first party company level.

Soooo, this also means this is possible for the other three as well. Sadly, this would mean many retailers would suffer the lack of "traffic" in the wake of videogame console launches, but if the Steam Deck is managing it, albeit slower than people want, I think it's possible to create a core company-to-consumer logistic that reduces the ability for greedy people to capitalize on demand. AND, truth be told, cutting out retailers likely has some financial benefit, too, that may outweigh the increased cost of handling direct-to-customer logistics. In fact, both Nintendo and Microsoft technically have the infrastructure already in place. Nintendo will have to work on their servers for sure, though, as recent events have proven at such a small scale lol

I'll get more informed and do my research next time. My bad I didn't know Amazon, WalMart, ect sold consoles at a loss.  /s   I get that the attached rate on a scalped game system is delayed.  There may even be a loss associated with it as someone who waits to buy at MSRP isn't subscribed to any services (assuming they aren't already subscribed to said services with a last gen console) and perhaps they buy 1 or 2 less games lifetime because they had to wait to have the system in their hands.  You seem to be making it out to be a complete loss. It is not.  It is mostly just a delay in attachment.

I work closely with logistics.  There is a reason the big three sell to Amazon and other e-commerce as well as all the brick and mortar stores rather than direct to consumer.  It is because it is much cheaper for them in both terms of money and resources. 

One: Physical shipment is cheaper and infinitely easier to track. 

It cost way less to ship 1000 consoles to 1 distribution center than to to ship 1000 consoles to 1000 individual addresses (almost an order of magnitude difference in shipping price)

Two: They do not have to employee nearly as many customer service people to deal with shipment issues. 

That is dealt with by whomever the manufacturer sells to.  Your package didn't arrive, your package was damaged? The manufacturer doesn't have to deal with that and eat more money, Amazon (or the like) has to decide if they want to. Guess who the end customer is pissed off at if things go wrong? Most likely not the manufacturer but whomever sold it to them will bear the brunt of their ill will.  This is a hard metric to track but believe me it is a fairly powerful factor.   

You are correct that revenue does not equate to profit for a manufacturer but the cost of logistics pretty much guarantees that the bulk of product flows through a middle man (at least at the scale the big three sell at). Middlemen don't really care about about attach rates and they see little to nothing in the way of services (one of the reasons Microsoft and so many others started targeting services years ago i.e. cut out the middle man)

That's what I said for my first option (using accounts to order one). But like some people say, Steam Deck only works because the demand is significantly less and the targeted audience are niche. Do people really want to wait those long queues. That's why I said prioritize the people in their subscription service or any method that can determine that person really wants it for their own good. Retailers are still important imo so fully online is not really the first choice.

In Brazil your first option would be a violation of the Customer Defense Code, as you can't demand or give privilege to someone who buys one product to buy the other. Sales must be independent.

Nice, thanks for the insight. U sure there aren't any loopholes to that rule tho? I wonder how many countries have that rule in place. After listening to interviews of multiple publishers, one thing that makes it difficult was the different rules in every country, so perhaps this is part of the reason why they don't do much about it.

Isn't Deck a lot less volume and demand than the 2 consoles? Is it even being reported to suffer massive sold out?

That's what I said for my first option (using accounts to order one). But like some people say, Steam Deck only works because the demand is significantly less and the targeted audience are niche. Do people really want to wait those long queues. That's why I said prioritize the people in their subscription service or any method that can determine that person really wants it for their own good. Retailers are still important imo so fully online is not really the first choice.

It is, it's constantly sold out and WAYYY behind on meeting demand, but this thread was about combatting scalpers, and the Steam Deck CLEARLY has enough demand to have a scalping problem... except it doesn't.

I mean, look at limited editions for popular franchises, those also face major bot scalping problems.  Valve handled the Steam Deck fairly, even if, again, massively being undersold because of it.

That's the thing, it's a long queue, but there's virtually no "omg bots scalpers bought them all we can't get one!" thing happening because they have stipulations in place.  Valve is properly getting Steam Decks into buyer's hands because they've set up restrictions in place, and though once again the lack of distribution and production struggles to meet demand, the reality is that the demand is high enough that there SHOULD be a scalping problem.  Except there (mostly) isn't...