It's not really true anymore. Thanks to the last two generations of console games and all the various re-releases and remakes, AAA game publishers and developers have woken up to the need to preserve their games, their source code and assets. They are hiring archivists as well as having archiving as part of the tasks for finishing off a game.
jay
joined 1 month ago
What does everyone here do when you can’t sleep and are wide awake besides being on phone? [serious]
'They told me to destroy' my backups, Fallout creator Tim Cain says: 'People high up at companies take authority but no responsibility' for game preservation
It's a lot more than just "a few dev hours". You need to invest in training your testers on Linux, potentially purchasing new hardware, invest in programmers that can deal with writing for Linux, etc... Just because something like BattlEye has a checkbox for Linux support doesn't mean that all it takes is to click the button and rebuild your game.
"but console manufacturers have been known to brick or flag devices if they get connected before official launch."
Big citation needed on that. There's zero need for console manufacturers to do that when they can simply hold down the servers on their end until release date anyways, Never once heard of a device bricked simply because you received it early and tried using it.
I put the phone down as the light coming from it is part of the reason your brain is staying awake.