| JackHandy said: Adjusting for inflation and the price-point people place on items are two different things. The average Joe does not walk into a store, see an eighty dollar game that was sixty dollars the last time they saw a similar one and go, gee... that's a lot of money... but if I calculate for inflation and carry the one... it's about the same price! They see eighty that dollars and go, fuck that shit! And that's what's going on right now. People are not happy. Hell, during the official stream, there were tons of viewers spamming lower the price over and over again. lol But hey, if you don't care, if you want to justify it, go right ahead. People that like things justify things. It happens. I don't justify anything. I just look at something and make a judgment, regardless of my bias, and for the first time in my life, I'm seeing Nintendo attempting to out-gouge the rest of the guys which is really, really odd. You don't think of Nintendo as being the gouge-company. You think of them as being the consumer-friendly company. A company that thinks about mass market first. But eighty dollar digital games? That's not mass market. That's just insane, imo. |
Given that nominal wages also increased (which is why I originally talked about the relative price of the consoles in terms of their percentage of average salary) perceived affordability is affected by inflation. If you compare to the average wage, the PS3 cost double in % of average 2006 salaries what the Switch 2 costs in 2025 salaries. The Switch 2's price is in line with the Wii and Switch in that metric, both highly successful consoles.
What you saw with the stream is the same thing we saw with the original Switch. Many people, mostly those who weren't interested in the Switch 2 in the first place or who see the platform as something "lesser" for its form-factor or hardware (like you did in this thread, originally), complained "why would I buy a handheld that costs $350 with a game when the other consoles cost just as much?" Then it became either the first or narrowly second best selling platform of all time. Again, you didn't address the fact that my Switch (which I bought refurbished because I couldn't find a new one) cost more than my new PS4 Pro, within six months of each-other, and even if I found it new without a game, it would've been only $50 cheaper than the PS4 Pro and more expensive than a base PS4 or XBO.
And no, I don't think if somebody wants to buy the next Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, or any of these dozen million selling titles, that a $20 price increase is going to stop them. People might buy fewer games over all (and this might affect less popular titles) but the console itself and the big sellers (which are the games being priced this high) are going to sell regardless.
If you think Nintendo hasn't been the most profit-seeking of the big three, I don't know where you've been. They never take a loss on their platforms (except when they dropped the GameCube to $99), their games never drop in price, they keep features to the bare minimum for their service and networking infrastructure, they have expensive accessories attached to their platform, etc. They haven't been the "cheap" brand since the Wii/GC days. They've basically positioned themselves as a video game version of Disney. Sony and Microsoft, comparatively are more willing to take a loss and subsidize their gaming segments by other products they sell. For them, gaming is a complementary good or service within a greater software/media infrastructure.
Last edited by sc94597 - on 04 April 2025
