Definitely not here in Canada and Nintendo used to be the cheaper alternative here.

Exchange rate and inflation vastly outpace any increase in income.
PS4 launch was in 2013 for CAD 399, WiiU 2012 for CAD 299. Games were CAD 50 and CAD 60.
That was around the time the Canadian dollar reached parity with the US dollar for a while.

Now the Canadian dollar is about 70 cents on the US dollar.
Inflation from 2012 to now is 34% (with the bulk of it from the pandemic)

So $100 US (which was basically CAD 100 in 2013) is now CAD 186 including inflation, (86% increase)
So yeah the numbers make sense CAD 90 for the old CAD 50 games, CAD 110 for the old CAD 60 games.

CAD 399 is now CAD 742, PS5 with disc is sold at CAD 650 (Slim Digital is CAD 580)
CAD 299 is now CAD 556, Switch 2 will be sold at CAD 629 (Currently Switch is CAD 399)
PS5 / Series new games are currently CAD 90, Switch 2 games I expect to be listed at CAD 95 / 110 (for $70 / $80 games)



We didn't get a 86% raise in wages over the past decade, avg hourly wage increase from 2012 to now is 36%, keeping up with inflation.
Nintendo went from being the cheaper alternative (both in hardware and new game prices) to becoming the most expensive here.
That while Sony and MS have many more ftp games, discounts, game subscriptions, integration with PC.

Gaming has definitely become more expensive and prohibitive here.
From WiiU to Switch 2 is a 210% increase. (still less than from PS4 Pro 399 to PS5 Pro 960, 240% increase)

Switch 2 will likely be the cheaper alternative again once PS6 / Series ? launches, but launching 'early' is a handicap this time. I expect Switch 2 to have a slow start here.

Excuse to troll Nintendo? Give me a break lol. 

I'm not sure why you think I'm trying to justify the PS5 price hike. Or need other Sony fans to help me justify that price hike. That's not my point. The difference in reactions goes to show the OP is not as bulletproof as some may think. That's literally saying Nintendo good, Sony bad, when using inflation as an argument, with this site's reaction as the baseline.

To be fair Rol does make other points I agree with, such as variable pricing, but inflation is framed as the essential argument in the OP. 

The $399 Steam Deck comes with 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD for storage. If the internal storage of the Switch 2 is faster or slower ain't tested so far.

P.S.: I just benchmarked the internal SSD and a microSD card (SanDisk Extreme A2) on my Steamdeck.

The SSD reads sequential up to 3300 MB/s, the microSD card only up to 90 MB/s (so the internal memory is ~35x as fast).
Random reads on SSD up to 520 MB/s... ~52x as fast as the microSD card.

All microSD express cards I found are advertised with "up to 900 MB/s"... don't know if Nintendo uses faster internal memory or wants parity between internal memory and microSD Express cards.

This is so true, both the second and the third paragraph. People complain about BOTW's, TOTK's, Kirby's and Jamboree's price, but, aside from Jamboree, these games are out there for years now. I think that, specially with the Zelda games, 95% of people who wanted to buy these games, have already done it. Almost no one is going to actually pay for the whole 80$ price altogether at once to play them on the Switch 2. Most of people will only pay the 10~20$ for optional aditional content and visual improvments or just receive them as a NSO bonus. An the end of the day, having the Zelda games with their DLCs and Kirby and Jamboree with their addtional content in the Switch 2 costing the same price of their original version in the Switch 1 mean that the base game would cost less than their Switch 1's version, which is something that Nintendo doesn't do. Nintendo doesn't drop the price of its games, and as Rol said, this whole polemic all comes down to it.

So as I thought, console warrior related. What does the reactions to the PS5 price hike have to do with Switch 2's pricing reactions? Are you trying to call out hypocrites? Why not quote them instead of all these imaginary posters. Are you implying this site has a Nintendo bias? Even if the site did have a Nintendo bias, should that stop other posters/fans from posting? Thats my point, this is obviously just an excuse. It's ok, if you have a negative take about Nintendo feel free to get it out. 

I'm a longtime Nintendo fan but I still have a negative take about Nintendo. It's about the software prices for Switch 2 games, their treatment of fan works, and their backwards thinking regarding accessibility towards their older games.

That's fine, this poster on the other finds it necessary to drag PS5 into this for the console warrior nonsense. You are allowed to have your opinion just as Nintendo believes the prices are fair and the other things they do. Rol's thread seeks to justify the prices with inflation or value and you are free to disagree just like Nintendo is free to think otherwise. There are others instead that spread misinformation or are dishonest & disengious. Thats what others are addressing, those arent opinions, this is just either right or wrong. You also have others trying to speak for the market at large when they use the "public outcry" has been bad along with my favorite youtuber *insert random youtuber* said this. That what others seem to not get. This happens alot when you have anonymous individuals sharing their opinions.

It's fascinating to watch people actually defend such blatant anti-consumer practices. I've yet to see a single actually compelling argument for the software prices in particular being that high. One of the most baffling ones I saw here were that games such as BotW and TotK cost $80 because most people who want the games have already bought them. What kind of ridiculous argument is that? So it's fine to rip off a small group of people because others got them for cheaper before? That's some impressive mental gymnastics to try and justify blatant overpricing from Nintendo.

I can just about understand the $80 price point for entirely new Switch 2 games, even if I'm personally never going to pay that much for any of them, but asking the same kind of prices for what amount to slightly improved re-releases is just exploitative towards their customers. Add to that stuff like the DLC for BotW not even being included in the re-release makes this whole thing even more distasteful to me.

As an economist, who have lived and experienced across 3 continents, I am extremely bothered by the "inflation" argument used as an excuse to increase console hardware and software prices.

1) Inflation is not a homogeneous phenomenon and greatly varies by industry. Inflation in the IT sector has been negative for many decades, so the average inflation argument cannot be used for justification of the price hike.

2) Inflation does happen, it is not "applied". If your costs go up or you are a price setter (having monopolistic power) when the demand gets inelastic, you decrease the supply and charge higher prices to boost profitability. It just happens, you don't look for an excuse.

3) Real Income has not kept up with the inflation. If it feels expensive, and $80 games really do, inflation is irrelevant!

What's going on today is to check on demand and decrease its elasticity. If they can convince people that current high prices is equivalent to yesterday's lower prices, this will boost demand and make the prices more palatable and/or acceptable. Justifying high prices is simply a result of Stockholm Syndrome. The only way to fight is to check on your demand because firms try to maximize their profits after all, and if the demand is insufficient, then they will have to take a step back and reconsider their strategies.

bolded: Either that's a recent change, or not in all regions, as the most basic LCD Steam Deck here comes only with just 64GB eMMC storage, like this one.

italic: Yeah, all are just first gen SD Express with PCIe 3.1x1, but the standard also has PCIe 4.0x1 and 4.0x2, so basically doubling and quadrupling the bandwidth over PCIe 3.1x1. Since almost nobody used SD Express prior to the Switch 2, companies were not really investing much into the technology and just released a couple 1st gen cards, but with the Switch now incoming I'm fairly certain more will follow, and that they will also use the faster versions then. It's all the same SD specification even, so I think the Switch can also handle the faster versions.

You just compared it to a normal SD card, and going by it's speed I would say it's an UHS-I card. Of course the combination of a much slower SD card than the SD Express on Switch 2 and a much faster SSD than the eMMC on the most basic Steam Deck will make a giant variation in the performance that isn't representative to either console in this discussion.

Edit: Doublechecked on Steam and it looks like Valve discontinued the 64GB eMMC version by now, and the 256GB SSD version is now the base at 419€ here. But the other points all still stand.