I lived through all these times and I do not remember any of those events as you just described. You seemed to have an extremely biased and selected remembrance, which is a sign of extreme one-sidedness, so to speak. Shortly,

PS1 was always poised to be a big player due to the confidence on Sony. Beating an already-beatup Sega was a given but the success against Nintendo was somewhat surprising.

Gameboy was criticized but the opinion was divided, went both ways. Remember the virtual boy!

DS was criticized on low end hardware but praised in many other aspects. The industry didn't expect such a success but noone expected failure either. Noone was shocked the success against the PSP either, it was expected, but the huge margin wasn't expected.

Pretty much the same with Wii. People expected it to sell way more than Gamecube but not to outsell ps3.

The idea about Switch was divided. Some feared and expected the WiiU type failure, some expected Wii type success. The second camp was right, though even they were surprised.

So you are painting a completely pitch black picture from a black and white image.

I lived through all these times and I do not remember any of those events as you just described. You seemed to have an extremely biased and selected remembrance, which is a sign of extreme one-sidedness, so to speak. Shortly,

PS1 was always poised to be a big player due to the confidence on Sony. Beating an already-beatup Sega was a given but the success against Nintendo was somewhat surprising.

Gameboy was criticized but the opinion was divided, went both ways. Remember the virtual boy!

DS was criticized on low end hardware but praised in many other aspects. The industry didn't expect such a success but noone expected failure either. Noone was shocked the success against the PSP either, it was expected, but the huge margin wasn't expected.

Pretty much the same with Wii. People expected it to sell way more than Gamecube but not to outsell ps3.

The idea about Switch was divided. Some feared and expected the WiiU type failure, some expected Wii type success. The second camp was right, though even they were surprised.

So you are painting a completely pitch black picture from a black and white image.

This is a good list! What I would cautiously add (as I haven't fully thought this through) is that at least at first glance the Switch 2 seems to be disrupting Sony's and Microsoft's business.

If you look at it from a conventional angle, the Switch 2 is still lacking in areas like graphics power and is not considered to be a "hardcore" console. However, mobile chip technology has made huge jumps over the past decade, to the point where many people have to look twice to see a difference between a Switch 2 game and a PS5 game and most games can run adequately on Switch 2.

At this point, Sony and Microsoft can only move upmarket to keep their margins - which Sony did, with the extremely expensive PS5 Pro. Microsoft on the other hand saw the writing on the wall and basically went third party. And Sony will have to do the same thing if they want to stay in the very echelon of the upmarket with the PS6, as that console will have to be very expensive for people to see a difference compared to PS5 and software will be even more expensive to develop in the future than it already is.

Personally I think the hardware pricing is fine. The issue I have is

#1 Charging $70 for BOTW + $20 for the expansion that's $90 if you want to experience everything on the switch 2
#2 $10 for the instruction manual mini game
#3 $80 (digital) or $90 (physical) for Mario Kart World. This is their big AAA game and the starting price being this much plus the inevitable loads of DLC that will follow is going to make this game the standard pricing for Nintendo AAA games this generation.

Will the Switch 2 have cheaper games, of course, and a lot of 3rd party games will be really cheap a few months after release this will be awesome as it looks like most 3rd party games are going to come to the S2. Its just Nintendo really showing their insane Greed that is a huge turn off.

Switch 2 can certainly have a disruptive effect because Switch 1 already had it. It was primarily affecting the Japanese market because Sony's strategy made it unsustainable for most third parties to remain PS-exclusive, so they branched out to Switch and PC, of which Switch greatly benefited in the Japanese market. The PS5 software sales in Japan have gone down notably in comparison to the PS4 despite similar hardware sales.

I don't think that Microsoft saw the writing on the wall, rather it's that their incoherent strategy led to their ultimate downfall as a console manufacturer regardless of what Switch 2 was going to be. Nintendo didn't do anything here other than having the patience to let someone else fail. But the effect of Microsoft's descent into irrelevance as a console manufacturer is increased pressure on AAA third parties to include Switch in the multiplatform mix on a much more regular basis. I don't see this having as much of an effect as we've seen in Japan, but nonetheless it's good for Nintendo and bad for Sony.

True, doesn't make it any less awful for those who don't own the game.

I own BotW, and I still care. Just because something doesn't directly harm you doesn't mean you can't still recognize and criticize awful practices by companies. And again, just because something only applies to a small group of people doesn't make it any better.

Irrelevant. I break up posts to make replying to specific points a more coherent affair.
Don't twist my words.

And correct, if a game is sold at a higher price then it needs to include everything in a Deluxe/Complete/Anniversary edition or whatever.
I am simply building a framework for my pro-consumer argument that applies to all games, all platforms, no excuses. - I am not specifically asserting that Kirby is or isn't including extra content, that argument I reserved for Zelda to showcase as an example.

If Kirby isn't including extra content, then the base game needs to be sold at a lower price as it's a last generation game.
If it is including extra content in it's package, then I would have the expectation it's sold at a better price more in line with the original Switch release.

I am not pretending I have looked into the nuances of what is/isn't included with Kirby as it's a franchise I don't follow or personally play.

Pricing is clearly a problem.

Actually a massive problem, hence you tried to make a thread arguing why it's a good thing, when it clearly is not... It's dominating the gaming news discussion across the planet, that's how big of a problem it is.

I own Breath of the Wild on WiiU.
I own Breath of the Wild on Switch.

I -would- have bought the game on Switch 2 if it actually included extra content at the same price... Or came in at a lower price as it's a 2 generation old title.
That's clearly not the case, Nintendo misses out on a sale.

I don't pay for subscription services... And once NSO runs out or Nintendo shuts down it's servers, you lose access to that content anyway.

I have zero issue with Nintendo not dropping their prices.

I do have an issue when Nintendo takes a 2 generation old game and tries to sell it to us at a higher price with zero effort or extra content.

And you should as well.

You are a consumer. Support pro-consumer, not anti-consumer practices, Nintendo doesn't care about you as an individual, if you were to die tomorrow, they won't know or care, so why the undying loyalty?

No. Nintendo's profits shouldn't be our concern, it makes no difference to us as consumers. If Nintendo's profits doubled, will we see better games? No. No we won't.

Your argument is anti-consumer and that is a path I cannot support.

Nintendo's strategy being far more succesful than ps is what made it unsustainable for 3rd parties to be ps exclusive, which was never logical in the first place and only started out of bribes. I hate when people keep ignoring the real cause of things. Just like the main reason why the vita failed was the 3ds, which was cheaper and had a far better game library.

What kind of ridiculous unrelated nonsense is that? I SAID YOU LIED BACAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU DID. End of story. I said nothing about what you can and cannot criticize so don't try to pull this bullshit.

I appreciate that you concede that you can't be bothered to inform yourself about what's included in the Switch 2 Edition of Kirby.

You are mistaken if you believe that this thread was made because there's a massive pricing problem; there isn't. What we have is a stupidity problem and an outrage culture that wants to make mountains out of molehills or at times even nothing.

You keep saying that BotW and TotK have no extra content, but there is new stuff. You try to shrug off audio logs as not counting because they are played from an external app, but it's pretty wild to act as if voice actors work for free. The other features are less costly too implement, but they are more than zero effort.

Profitability should be of our concern as consumers, because it greatly influences how companies make decisions. Why do you think that so many video game publishers have implemented anti-consumer practices to nickle and dime gamers? Even Nintendo was in this situation around ten years ago, for a period of time they operated at a loss. It was during this period that Nintendo tried out a multitude of approaches towards DLC packages and pricing for 3DS and Wii U games, even rolled out a couple of Pokémon titles that were free to start and had microtransactions. It was then and there that I and other Nintendo gamers could vote with our wallets, and we picked the pro-consumer path of meaty expansions instead of the nickle and diming, hence why the expansion pass became the norm for Switch games; at least for the games that have additional content, because most Nintendo games don't have it in the first place.