>>717415631
Market of enthusiasts hunting for games so they're willing to pay the $1-$20 you're asking.
It's a niche device so people are willing to buy more after the seasons run out.
It doesn't require major time investment into developing something for it. The expectation is your game is going to be around 2-6 hours at most and you're also expected to keep it simple on top of that.
It's a hobbyist device in general. Many people use it to test dev or make some small idea they had and then sell it for $1. It leads to a lot of "Game Jam"-esque ideas.
The crank genuinely does lead to some novel ideas using it or it inspires people to try and incorporate it into their games.
In general the games are sold very cheaply. I've been looking into the thing recently after remembering it existed a few months back and most games are in the $1-$5 range. Only the "major" games tend to be past that, but they never go past $20 and typically stay $10 or under. It's like the early App Store in that regard.
There's also the fact that it's just different from what we've got now. It's more similar to some interim between the GB and GBA leading to people also making nostalgic-esque games.
The major downsides of the system are the horrendous pricing (Seriously, $230?) and if you drop it at all apparently it's very prone to just outright dying. Like, we're talking the screen breaking instantly and if you RMA it when not under warranty fixing it costs $130+.
