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This Week in Games - Sticker Shock

DEI doesn't have anything to do with fanservice. This is just another example of how a term has been co-opted and people don't actually know what it means.

When you say "people would pay money to not have any DEI in it", the correct interpretation of that statement would mean people would pay money to remove minority characters. Paying for fanservice is not the same as paying for actual racism/discrimination.

FIshLion wrote:

There's a pretty obvious connection if you can see past your own nose. The president statted rolling back DEI and even trying to make it illegal. If you have made your whole personality being anti-DEI or anti-woke or whatever you want to call it like many do and the man who's making everything in our lives more expensive ran on being anti-DEI, it's really suspicious. Sure we don't know how an individual voted, but maybe if useful idiots (the actual term not insulting anyone here) didn't encourage obsessive grievances for that sweet, sweet ad revenue like that then maybe this idiot wouldn't have resonated so much and wouldn't have been voted in ruining stuff for everyone.

I won't pretend to be an expert on American politics but if you're going to ask people if they regret voting for Trump now that video games cost more I feel you should have to consider how video games would have been affected if the other side won instead. Instead of policies abolishing DEI there would be policies that promoted and enforced it instead. So if the alternative to video games costing more is they would have been filled with even more stuff people don't like due to government initiatives then it sounds like it's more of a pick your poison type of situation. The way people discuss this topic just comes off as people trying to convince others into thinking if they didn't complain about stuff they don't like in video games then video games would be completely fine when at best they would have stayed the same which was unsatisfactory for those people and at worse they would have become even worse for them. Not that it really matters since it's not like people can go back in time and change their vote regardless so it just seems like unnecessary drama.

I won't pretend to be an expert on American politics but if you're going to ask people if they regret voting for Trump now that video games cost more I feel you should have to consider how video games would have been affected if the other side won instead.

Instead of policies abolishing DEI there would be policies that promoted and enforced it instead.

So if the alternative to video games costing more is they would have been filled with even more stuff people don't like due to government initiatives

Preorders got delayed because of the tariffs, so it's going to cost even more. Love being an American (at least for another year until I get to NL and renounce my citizenship).

Americans historically have gotten off very easily compared to South Americans, Europeans, and many other markets whoa already had to pay exuberant prices for video games. The Switch 2 is going to cost 3 months rent in Brazil so I think Americans will survive paying a bit more.

Sweden is looking at paying the equivalent of 700€ for the Switch 2 I was looking forward to it but I can't really justify that price. Nintendo really dropped the ball.

I remember when Bravely Default came out, people were pitching a fit about it being on the 3DS as if that meant it wasn't good anymore. It was so irritating. Wonder if they'll get it now on the Switch 2...

AQuietLife wrote:

Sweden is looking at paying the equivalent of 700€ for the Switch 2 I was looking forward to it but I can't really justify that price. Nintendo really dropped the ball.

What would you have them do? Lose $200 USD on each unit? Inflation is way up since 2020, chip costs are up like 25% in the same period, and now Japan is being hit with 24% tariffs and the major console production is in Vietnam (46% tariff) and China (34% tariff) and who knows when Trump might pile on more on a whim.

The alternative is basically: Delay the Switch2 for 4 years and hope sanity prevails then.

Speaking about Square-Enix, I think another of its game series that always gets a lot of flack due to its graphics it's the Dragon Quest series, the series itself it's in a weird position in which it's an institution in its home country of Japan, but the series never managed to have a breakthrough hit game like its half-sister series got with Final Fantasy VII, and many of the complaints against DQ is that its too traditional, it never pushes the graphical envelope, that it's a "confort food" type of game aimed for the Japanese, etc. That's why there's been a lot of speculation that maybe DQXII would be the first game in the series that tries to be a sort of AAA experience, but then there's the issue that it'll probably is going to be released in the Switch 2 as well, since DQ has had a closer history with Nintendo consoles and now people are already thinking that the Switch 2 is going to held the game back

Yeah, there really wasn't much Nintendo could do in this scenario. Selling your console at a loss is already a rough call to make, Nintendo was desperate when they slashed prices on the 3DS--but that worked out for them also because people bought the games. Slashing prices on games is a tougher call to make; it's one thing for your console to be a loss-leader because your console can onboard your customers. It's another to lose your shirt on every copy of a game you sell.

Like, I hate the $80 price tag too and I'd rather not pay it. And they're a corporation, they're always looking out for their bag. But I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt on this, not because I'm some Nintendo loyalist but because unlike Sony and Microsoft, games are Nintendo's only thing--Nintendo isn't also a massive multimedia corporation with ownership over consumer electronics, film, music and television, nor are they the owners of the most-used OS worldwide. Not to mention... yeah, man, they got hosed over hard by those tariffs.

The other factor people forget when it comes to Nintendo's prices in the EU: EU retail prices have VAT (sales tax) baked in.

Even if people were making more, the $80 price tag likely wouldn't be as much of a dealbreaker the way it is. But I think between the shouting in the Treehouse streams PLUS the tariffs being way worse than anyone could've imagined is making Nintendo wish they pushed the Switch 2 to literally any other date. I expect there to be a lot of hot collars and sweating at those Nintendo board meetings right now.

Stuff is serious when I seen gaming and Nintendo subreddits drop their "no politics" rules because everyone is pissed at the tariffs. It's also happened with figurine Reddits because, lo and behold, a lot of those come from China. I'm seeing people link to Hands Off protests going on today. Man, do not mess with people's treats, especially if you're the government