Seriously, this was a thing 10 years ago! I bought five, and they all still work perfectly. They do multiroom audio. They are compatible with the new Nest speakers. The only reason we can't have them today is corporate greed and rent-seeking MBA fuckers.
In the US, MSRP at launch in 2015 was $35.
With inflation, that's worth ~$46 today.
I see one on eBay right now (open-box, allegedly never used) for $60, delivered, in buy-it-now format.
$60 is not an ideal sort of price, but it's not something that seems extortionist or anything compared to the inflation-adjusted price from 2015.
A self-updating hardware/software combination from Google can never be a long term solution. Reliance on old units from eBay (or not!) cannot make that situation any better nor any worse.
(FYI, I chased that route, there is/was _one_ model that worked as an airplay2 device, but it still didn't feel as "native" as the modern HomePods ... icon was different, pairing was slower and slightly flakey... I moved to the belkin directly and have been happier. That and home assistant allowing single target airplay1 support to chrome cast / google nest devices sometimes is useful in a pinch)
I'm being serious. If it has nothing to do with Nintendo then it's terrible branding.
The upside is that they mostly seem to care about making good products rather than branding.
TBH, I didn't even know such devices existed. I thought that if I wanted to stream from Spotify without a PC I would need to go down the Sonos route, which I obviously don't want to do.
The problem with not having good branding is that potential customers walk right past your products. It's only chance comments in this thread that's made me take a second look. Thanks for the info :-)