>I would honestly be shocked if they can ship a console with even those specs along with a controller and all the assorted bits and pieces you need, to an end u

>I would honestly be shocked if they can ship a console with even those specs along with a controller and all the assorted bits and pieces you need, to an end user for $99 without eating some hidden costs themselves Google is selling the Nexus 7 right now for 200 dollars. This is essentially the same hardware but: 1) No screen, no batteries, no cellular radio 2) No need to squeeze it into the tiniest and lightest possible form factor 3) It doesn't come out until next year. While I have no idea if they are actually competent, it is a reasonable goal. The controller apparently costs 30 dollars. >Even worse, the hardware specs are just... short-sighted. 8GB of storage is not remotely enough for a console that has no physical storage medium for games It's going to have an SSD slot. They omitted that in their description but that info is available in the other news articles. Not ideal but a perfectly okay spot to save on IMO. >There's also other assorted details that just make this feel lazy... Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all made sure that each of their buttons has a distinct shape or letter associated with it so that in-game text and UI can communicate clearly to anyone who plays. Agreed. I hope they fix this before launch. >I could also rant about the fact that they think a Tegra 3 and Cortex A9 is adequate for a game console, but honestly I'm not worried about that. It's a good baseline. They can't go higher than this and sell it for 100 dollars. The one hardware bit I am worried about is that they make no mention of accelerometer and gyroscope in the controller. The Nexus 7 and pretty much any recent cellphone and tablet being have them now. They make great low cost all in one chips for this they really need to squeeze that in there or they will be locked out of a huge amount of possible games. In general, we've all seen a huge surge of awesome games and innovation on tablets and phones in recent years. I don't think it is due to just the form factor -- it is because anyone in their garage can publish a game for the platform. Bringing this ease of development into the formerly protected space of the console/tv gaming is the benefit of this console.