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Nintendo's going to $80+ a game. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-02
www.forbes.com/…
Yeah — $90 isn’t out of the question either.
For those who aren’t into video games, prices have been $50-60 for a new retail game across all platforms since the mid-1980’s.
The idea is that even though inflation was going on that entire time, the audience size was also increasing way more than enough to support that same $50-60 price.
The difference now?
Pointless tariffs.
Same with the price of the upcoming Switch 2 console — the Switch was $300 at launch. Switch 2 is going to be $450 at base, or $500 with the add-on game, despite still being made with rather cheap stock industry phone parts (1080p screen, 256 gigs memory, etc.) for which $300 would already be quite expensive given the economy of scale.
Again though — tariffs are being priced in.
For a lot of folks, video games are priced so they’re actually a quite affordable alternative to paying for more expensive ongoing entertainment services. Used games used to be a release valve to prevent companies from overpricing products, since then gamers could just wait a few months and snag a copy someone else was done with.
But the industry has been pushing HARD to limit this option, and the increased price will mean there’s fewer copies floating around and more folks looking to buy used.
So… basically a small but significant source of misery to add to the already large pile, with its own set of negative knock-on effects hitting the poorest among us looking to get by.
All because an old guy had an extended temper tantrum about things he doesn’t understand, but just thinks it’ll help his rich friends.
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