Forum - View topicNEWS: Nintendo Delays Switch 2 Pre-Orders in U.S. to Assess Tariffs' Impact
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bertram
 Posts: 71 |
|
|||||
|
Nintendo has the opportunity to do a 400 IQ move here and simply do nothing at all. They're already catching flak for their greed with the price increase so all they have to do is let this stew for a few days and then announce they've decided to keep the price the same. They can paint it as them keeping their word and staying committed to what they announced for the sake of the customer and their integrity. So the original price everyone was originally outraged over now comes off as a generous gesture while everyone panics about tariffs. And Nintendo doesn't have to lift a finger. Win-win for them. Even better for them if some kind of trade deal is reached and the tariffs go away and they keep the initial price and just move along like nothing ever happened.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
StellaStellaStella
Posts: 5 |
|
|||||
Sony did raise the price of the PS5 back when computer components were hard to come by once the pandemic hit. They also increased it again last year in Japan where it went from ¥66,980 to ¥79,980 citing economic factors. I think Sony and Microsoft could easily shift the cost of games up if they wanted to like Nintendo did with Tears of the Kingdom which was their first 70 dollar game. Other companies I've seen entertain the idea of increasing prices are rumors of Rockstar doing it with GTA6 and some companies like Ubisoft trying to make "AAAA" games a thing to justify charging more. But Ubisoft seems to be in dire straits so I don't think that ever got off the ground. I think it can both be true that Nintendo might have priced the Switch 2 and it's games high in anticipation of tariffs but also they did it far more than they needed to for the sake of making money. Either way it's a bad look when no other gaming company is doing it so the massive backlash they got is understandable and hard to justify. |
||||||
|
||||||
Emerje
 Posts: 7455 Location: Maine |
|
|||||
Part of it is that no company wanted to be the one that broke the $70 barrier, certainly not Sony and Microsoft who were the ones that introduced that price point. Also unlike Sony and Microsoft who price physical and digital copies of games at the same price, Nintendo is reducing the cost of digital copies compared to physical copies. There's no tariffs on digital media just physical and it wouldn't surprise me if Sony and Microsoft did the same, charge $70 for digital games and $80 for physical now that Nintendo is setting that standard. Keep in mind that all Switch 2 games are digital, the physical copies are just chunks of plastic with a chip to unlock the game, there's no game software on the cards they may as well be key cards. Emerje |
||||||
|
||||||
|
aereus
Posts: 585 |
|
|||||
Based solely on US inflation between the release date of the original Switch and now, it would cost almost $400 today. Now consider chip production costs have gone up 25% in the last 5 years on top of that, and some nominal expectation of tariffs was also being baked into their MSRP — tariffs that are now concretely in play: 24% Japan, 34% China, 46% Vietnam. Based on that math: Make me a business case where you can price the console for less and not lose money. Also: Much like Switch1: You'll be able to count on one hand the number of games released for a +$10 premium. The vast majority of AAA/1st party titles will be the base price (In this case $70USD) and many AA and indie titles will continue to be $50 or less. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
D.E.D.E
Posts: 113 |
|
|||||
No it’s not, the amount of misinformation around this single fact is staggering. No, cartridges are not ‘keys’ to unlock the game. The particular cartridge you’re talking about is literally an evolution of the issue from the last Gen of the switch when devs sold ‘physical copies of the game’ which literally required a download and it was stated on the box. This isn’t a new issue. Secondly, there’s literally been announcements that disprove this rumour completely. CD Project Red came out already to confirm that Cyberpunk 2077 is all on a 64GB cartridge with no download or ‘unlocking’ required. There’s no reason what so ever for Cyberpunk 2077 to be able to fit on a cartridge but Braverly Default (one of the games with a ‘key’ cartridge’) can’t. It’s simply down to whether or not the devs WANT to do the extra work, which is a tale as old as time at this point. So no, key cartridges are not the new norm nor are they replacing cartridges with actual games on it. |
||||||
|
||||||
Wyvern
 Posts: 1647 |
|
|||||
|
The "anti-woke" gamer crowd has really knocked it out of the park, huh? They didn't make gaming any less "woke" and games they're furious at like Starfield and Assassin's Creed Shadows still ended up selling like crazy, but on the plus side, the elderly lunatic they helped elect has now made video games unaffordable for everyone, including them, so the Right won't be able to get offended by games anymore.
Don't worry, though: countries that have real presidents can still preorder. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
aereus
Posts: 585 |
|
|||||
|
I wouldn't go that far: Steam is certainly the largest storefront for games, but AFAIK the Nintendo eShop has A LOT of games available on it. (For better or worse) Almost anyone can release games on it, so you can find a ton of stuff to play on it. Might not be a new AAA game, but there will be stuff to entertain yourself for far less than $70-80 USD.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Emerje
Posts: 7455 Location: Maine |
|
|||||
Your use of "misinformation" is pretty wild. What I said was more exaggerated than actually wrong. Emerje |
||||||
|
||||||
|
MrPuzzles
Posts: 160 |
|
|||||
You get what you pay for it. Americans deserve this 1000%. What sucks is that the rest of the world doesn't. But like you said, most of the rest of the world happens to have actual grown ups as figureheads. Canada and the EU are already planning to economically move on ahead without the US. There's actually a pretty fantastic op-ed on the Bulwark about this. Worth a read! Only part of this I disagree with, and the part ironically that connects to Switch 2 news, is the US allying with China to relieve manufactoring pressure. China is literally the hardest hit country with the tariffs. The two really SHOULD have a love affair given that one is a tyrant and the other is a tyrant ass-kisser, but the fact is Xi and Trump cannot stand each other. If any alliance between the two will be brokered, it'll be borne purely out of economic desperation and paper thin. That's not a lasting or stable alliance. Canada, the EU, Australia, and other adjacent nations will tighten their ties and perhaps even grow stronger as a result. China will most likely do its own thing. And the US will scramble to make bed with other failing authoritarian bubbles. |
||||||
|
||||||
Beatdigga
 Posts: 4746 Location: New York |
|
|||||
As horrible as it is to consider, apparently most of those people consider making games unaffordable an acceptable sacrifice to tear down a system they believe has failed them (the go-to response when people complain about the tariffs is "My treats!" as if the people talking are spoiled children and not worth responding to). If nothing else, I don't think these tariffs will last because any minimal benefits they might have will be offset by the full-on depression hitting big businesses and other financial donors. But the next few months are going to be rough. |
||||||
|
||||||
Wizardizar
 Posts: 44 |
|
|||||
They are stopping preorders because your president is a an idiot that changes his mind every 2 days and crashed the market by like 10% in a few days. The worst thing in international business is uncertainty, and Nintendo doesn't know how much importers will have to pay to get the Switch into the US. Yeah, it's about profit. Funny how americans are somehow now angry at 'greedy foreign companies' when capitalism turns against them. The US is a huge market, sure, but Americans somehow think that they deserve their treats even if it eats into the profit margins of foreign companies disproportionally compared to the rest of the world, because their president used high school level math to calculate what is an actually really complex system and put a 10% tariff on a deserted island inhabited only by penguins. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Emerje
Posts: 7455 Location: Maine |
|
|||||
Hey, those zoos have had it good for too long importing penguins for free all these years! 
Emerje |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Mune
Posts: 386 Location: Minnesota |
|
|||||
|
This could be the best thing for Nintendo. They could reposition their prices, taking a loss to appease their customers. Will it happen? Most likely not going to happen.
I think the tariffs will be reversed before Nintendo reverses course on their prices. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Silver Kirin
Posts: 1345 |
|
|||||
I find it kind of funny, though also a bit concerning, that a lot of gaming channels that uploaded a lot of reactionary videos towards the Switch 2 game prices reveal have not said anything about the tariff, which is not only affecting Nintendo, it's going to affect gaming as a whole, not to mention the rest of the world's economy. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
MrPuzzles
Posts: 160 |
|
|||||
chatGPT. He used chatGPT. Do you REALLY expect him to be capable of high school level maths? |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group