Retailer Boycotts Xbox!

10-15 years ago, this would've been a huge deal. There wouldn't be any place that you could buy the console if the retailers decided to drop a product. Now, buying from online marketplaces like Amazon and Newegg as well as directly from the company website makes it possible to cut out the middle man even more (so to speak, they're still a middle man of sorts). If retailers don't want to carry the console, it's not a problem. All that's gonna happen is Microsoft will get more profits off their own hardware or the online retailers will fulfill the orders without hesitation. They don't have the same level of stake in profiting off of games or hardware. Advocates for used games in retail will probably hurt the most from this pass, however these are the same people who profit off of you when you sell it to them. Consumers shouldn't be as concerned about retailers dropping Microsoft products, but if you're the kinda person who doesn't want the future of gaming to be all digital, I can understand your worry. But that seems to be the direction it's all going. My only concern is the internet companies screwing us over (tangent topic so I'll keep it short). I can only hope that Google will pick up their plans once more to create a nationwide high speed internet competitor. My area only has 2 options outside of satellite, and one of the options barely has any speeds worth a damn. 

I get the idea behind the boycot, but I feel like this will only piss off their existing (and likely dwindling) loyal customers. Whole consoles aren't something you decide to buy while you're at the store, they're something you decide to buy well before going there. When people decide to devote an entire trip to their favorite game store to picking up an Xbox, only to be told that they can't buy one there because the store actively chose not to carry that item, customers are just gonna get pissed and look elsewhere.

It's like fruit at grocery stores. Fruit doesn't really make the store any money directly due to the cost of keeping it in stock. But people go to a grocery store to pick up fruit and other stuff. If the grocery store that I liked going to just up and decided that they weren't gonna sell fruit and other quickly perishable items, I'd stop going there, and thus wouldn't be buying all my other weekly groceries from that store.

props for sticking up for their place in the industry, but it seems like a bad move that won't end well for anyone involved.