I’ve looked a bit more into things with the upcoming Nintendo thing. I’d heard something about region locking about the Switch 2, and apparently in Japan there’s plans for a locked console for a significant discount over the international one there, roughly ¥50K JPY vs. ¥70K JPY. If import shipping costs somehow end up being less than the difference of someone getting one in their home country, it’s going to be a big target for jailbreakers, so maybe they’ve done the math to make it less of a concern. As well, I was thinking that the US regime would have jacked up the sale price of the console in the country to $600 USD while the rest of the world would get a $400 USD “equivalent”, so I figure Nintendo is willing to take a higher loss than usual on this one at the moment. We’ll see if that idea holds, depending on how this system does with its lack of a traditional Mario platformer game at launch.
I’ve also seen a bit more about game pricing. Apparently Switch 2 games are going to range between $60-70 USD digital, with a $10 USD additional “Nintendo tax” for a physical version, which is how the new Mario Kart got to its AAAA pricing scheme of $80 USD. While there’s been a lot of talk about how digital games should be cheaper than their physical counterparts, and that only really happens during sales on the storefronts unless a used copy goes even cheaper than that, this is more of the angle of making the physical copies more expensive rather than presenting a discount to digital versions. There’s also the absolute chaos being imposed on the world economy in general in the lead-up to the extinction war so for all I know that’s just keeping pace with inflation. I usually overestimate slightly in those calculations, like guessing how $1 USD in 1998 is roughly $10,000 USD today or something for a worse Big Mac. I’m just wondering when that gets to Zimbabwe numbers and if that’s this decade.
For context in terms of what I pay for systems, I think I got my Switch for a bit over $200 USD secondhand a year or so after launch, and paid around $300 USD for my PS5 recently, also secondhand, though it was just the console and I already had some cables and controllers I’d gotten cheap. Yet I was willing to buy the top-of-the-line Steam Deck OLED new over a year ago at the usual price, about $650 USD plus taxes and such. I was more willing to put down that much probably since I saw more utility in that being a portable Linux computer that can also run a bunch of games well. So with the Steam Deck, I’m feeling much less in the market for a Switch 2 since I’ve got that as well as a classic Switch for portable gaming. And of course there’s the phone, which my current one cost about $300 USD on sale with the case and protector, but there’s very few phone games and game-like things I can stand for long, given how quickly they get warm and using a touch screen for anything other than taps or swipes is a bit awkward, which means bringing a separate controller for getting “serious”, so I might as well just pack a whole system for longer trips anyway.
There’s also how I don’t usually get things at launch now. Systems or games. It’s rare I’ll get a game for full price and even rarer to pre-order, essentially reserved for cases where I know I’ll want to be playing around midnight. Early access in-development stuff is its own thing. That’s part of how I save money, by not getting all the hottest games right away so I can splurge on other things later, like food and water and electricity. And occasionally something related to games, or travel. I want to get as much travel in as I can before that’s no longer possible for whatever reason. So portable systems are a good idea for long plane rides, which would sound like I’d be more excited for the Switch 2, but I’ve got plenty to do as it is already.