It’s a ton of money when comparing it to mainstream electronics, but I’d imagine that $300 single payment is a drop in the bucket for something medical. Anyone who needs it probably spends similar amounts or more adapting other everyday things for ease of use.
It’s a niche probably low volume product that requires a good amount of hardware and software engineering.
I agree that it is about market power, but one could make the argument that Xbox/PlayStation have a duopoly similar to iOS/Android.
Although I think PlayStation dominated with roughly a 70/30 split worldwide (higher in Europe). Nintendo is somewhat in its own category imo, since they mostly do their own games and don’t directly compete in that sense.
But I guess in a way consoles also compete with PCs.
I think you are right, the first article I linked was a bit ambiguous about it, but rereading the second one it seems that I misunderstood it and you are right.
One aspect through which one could argue that they might stifle competition is their price parity rule, for which it seems they are being sued. See here (not sure if there is any new development.
Hard to compete with steam if you cant at least do it through lower pricing. Although this article suggests that at least for epic exclusives publisher seem to prefer to just pocket the difference, rather than pass on those savings.