I don't think for one moment the chip shortage is the reason they won't sell to stores. I think this is a test to see if anybody will go for the beast system of eventually a chip in the head. They are desperate as we keep fighting back too much with our radical ways of 'fixing' the broken capitalist system.
I feel capitalism has failed and I've heard this prediction on YT gaming channels for years now we would reach this point if not already there and now the Steam Deck can't come to stores which seems to fullfill some of the predictions of the brick and mortor store crashing. They (Valve) blame it on chip shortages but I think we all know better.
You hear so many great things about the Steam Deck yet Valve seems to jump on board of the new economic model of 'No stores allowed' policy except ours. It seems since 2016 the trend has been more and more towards a walled garden never had I thought Valve would do it too!
This will continue to keep non Steamers at bay from exploring their library and sticking to their kiddy console instead which you'd think as a business person you would NOT want that to happen. I hope Nintendo doesn't make the Switch Pro or Switch 2 available at Nintendo Online only PRE ORDER NOW!!! Oops you won't get one till March 2024? TOO BAD! (Ordered in June of 2022 only to find out they were 'sold out' minutes after announcement along side BOTW2's release date)
You know the 2022 'big' Nintendo Direct where they announced BOTW2's full release date for July 31st 2023 (moved from March's potential release window) plus showed 2 mins gameplay footage where Link time/dimension jumped to other Zelda games and we STILL don't have a name for this game!!! But we DO have more of a premise for this title and lots and lots of juicy clickbait videos!
Remember them announcing it at the end of BOTW2's segment a major Switch upgrade? Even though the ad only lasted like 30 seconds for some odd reason it was sold out within minutes of preorder so Nintendo used that as an excuse to have it only available online like the Steam Deck.
there doesn't seem to be anything here