Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
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My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
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Everyone talks about inflation but the reality is that people's incomes generally have not risen to match it, so while I understand inflation, I also understand that I'm not actually making more money to offset it.
Declining real wages are an issue in the US predominantly, most is just stagnant but it also depends on how dependent you are on energy and how well did your country do to help out citizens with rising energy costs. There are also countries where real wages continued to grow consistently even through the pandemic.
Trump Tariffs have nothing to do with the Switch 2 prices in Europe. Everybody incl. Nintendo is just hiking prices because they can.
Switch prices have always been crazy. I only bought a switch because of my nephew and the fact that an almost 10 years old mario kart is still at full price is crazy. The way they try to push their paid dlc on kids is disgusting. The only reason they fer away with it because they are wholesome nintendo with quite a weird fan base
an almost 10 years old mario kart is still at full price is crazy
True but at least with physical media you can buy used.
I hope they are because there’s no damn way I’m spending $70+ on a video game, and since Nintendo never drops its game prices, I might as well just wait.
No one is saying the current prices are due to tarrifs, there is however speculation that tarrifs may increase the price further.
So, $80 game may be $90-100 with tariffs.
If everything I've seen is true, then this explains the higher prices for physical over digital.
And that should make me feel better about spending $80?
Nope, just that the worst is yet to come.
Haha, thanks for stepping in!
If the tariffs do increase the price, it won't be a flat 25% increase or whatever the tariff is set to.
A misconception I keep seeing people incorrectly repeat is that a 25% tariff on an item I can buy at the store for $100 USD today, means tomorrow it will cost me $125. This is wrong, and not how tariffs work. If you see a price increase like that, that is price gouging, using a tariff as a shield. You are getting scammed.
The 25% tariff is based on whatever the imported cost of the item is, not the MSRP or final sale price. Lets just say for simplicity that the Switch 2 cost $100 for us to buy it. But, for a store to import the product, they buy it directly from Nintendo for a cost of just $35 USD per unit (again, for simplicity). A 25% tariff would be a tax of $7.50 USD that the store would need to pay per Switch console. In this hypothetical, a 25% tariff on that item would mean you would only expect to see a final price increase to $107.50 due to tariffs, and not a final price of $125.
Please be informed, don't let yourself be scammed.
This is wrong, and not how tariffs work. If you see a price increase like that, that is price gouging, using a tariff as a shield. You are getting scammed
so expect to see $100 items at $125, got it
$135 for a game. Noted.
don’t let yourself be scammed.
When entire industries are forming informal cartels, there is little individual consumers can do. That's why antitrust authorities exist.
Don't worry I'm sure they are working on getting rid of those too.
Interesting. For games consoles, the markup for retail is probably like 10 percent or less. So the final price in your example would be between 122.50 and 125 anyway, right?
*Also, my source on the 10% is a random Reddit commenter so take that with a grain of salt
Correct, tariffs are not a consumption tax. That fact doesn't mean prices will not increase, nor does it mean that small increases don't have a big impact. We, the common people, will have have to go about our lives with less. Maybe wear your shirts an extra day because laundering more regularly consumes more soap. Perhaps it's going without avocado on your lunch sandwiches. You'll still have shirts and sandwiches, but you certainly wouldn't be as clean or as filled. (See the "surplus" chapter of your high-school/undergrad econ books.)
Yes, the prices go up, but not like how people seem to be normalizing. The price increase is generally only likely to be noticeable on items where stores sell at an incredibly tiny profit margin.
A 10% tariff does not mean a 10% MSRP price increase, it means an increase but of a lot less. But people are I guess not intelligent or informed enough to know this and so incorrectly say a 10% tariff means a 10% MSRP price increase, which again, is wrong.
Yep. My consumer concerns are less of retail sticker-shock than people not realizing how dependent they are on consumer surplus. Even a few thousand a year in tariff related expenditure can be quite impactful on comfort.
Sticker-shock will happen with the tariff-adjacent removal of de minimis. Right now it's China, but it was threatened against Canada and Mexico too (officially delayed, whatever that may mean). A $50 per-item charge is going to be quite a surprise to many.
E.g. if Canada is going to be levied like China, then my plan of getting a pair of oversized Cam-Lock kits for my Canadian-made Arkel bike panniers is gone out the window. There's no way I'll buy small parts when the total package cost is the same as getting a whole new set of panniers.
Yes, but that is what a tariff is designed to do. It is designed to encourage you, the consumer, to not buy imported products, so that you buy domestic products instead.
It can be frustrating for consumers in a nation that is extremely dependent on imports, like the United States, because the US does not produce the products its consumers want to buy. If the tariffs remain long enough, the idea is that domestic companies will begin making the products that the consumers want to buy instead of importing, which is obviously beneficial to the economy in many ways, but for the consumer waiting for that to happen, it is hard to see past the number.
Also doesnt help that wages have stagnated while inflation has gone up due to corporate greed. Paying 2025 prices wouldn't feel so bad if everyone was getting 2025 pay, but instead most of us are paying 2025 prices on like, 2008 pay. Not a fun experience.
I don't really understand US politics but this tariffs thing seems stupid to me. What are the pros?
Pros: since you can't import anything anerica will pull itself out of the massive hole it was pre trump, billions of jobs will appear out of thin air and america makes everything from mining titanium/lithium, building toyotas to manufacturing worlds best microchips on their home country, yeehaw! Also no tariffs on russia cause they're misunderstood and are saviors of the white race.
Cons: Above is only true if you are mentally insane and live in an alternative universe without history.
The theory is that it's supposed to encourage internal economic growth via domestic production of goods by making foreign made goods much more expensive. What the orange dip shit failed to understand is that America doesn't have the internal infrastructure or resources needed to create most of the goods they consume. This is basically just a tax on the US consumer that ruined a lot of international trade deals and caused an irreversible decline in confidence with American markets.
And there's no reason to produce those things here either, labor just costs too much.
I think there are people in the US who wanted tariffs because it could bring some jobs and they are not that concerned with economic consequences because their lives are so bad already.
💪🔥🇺🇸🦅💰🔥 <—That’s it, that’s the plan. Got it from the ultra maga patriot economists ONLY group chat 🔫 😎🎆
Im really hoping the pricing already had the fed govts fafo priced in
I think they might have a bit, but I dont think anyone was quite expecting this. I think prices may go up before release if tariffs aren't changed. I could see the console being $500.
Why are they “so expensive”? Inflation. Rampant inflation for the last 5 years.
When you look at the gaming industry, prices have stayed basically static for the last 30 years, way out of step with regular inflation. Inflation at the target of like 3% means games and consoles should cost 3% more every year.