Not often in my experience. I’ve only ever had the chance to buy a console early once and that was a special dispensation from Nintendo to buy a Wii (at a discount) from them directly as thanks for being a developer on a launch title. Even then, production shortages meant that not everyone was able to get theirs in the first shipment. The rest of the time, I’ve had to buy new game consoles the same way everybody else does. On a related note, one of the publishers I worked for had a standing policy to pay $100 towards any new game console employees bought, but they still had to be purchased retail.
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