#nintendo price gouging

[13thpythagoras]

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

There is no reason an N64 cartridge should cost more than five bucks in 2023. Super Mario 64 sold tens of millions of copies, it should be a dime a dozen, but everyone on ebay is asking 15, 20, 40, up to 60 dollars for it! That's absolutely ridiculous! All the cheapest cartridges have the stickers torn off with sharpie scrawled on them and are sold as is, no returns. I should be able to buy some old games at a reasonable price, but every single website is acting like they're all brand new releases. You used to be able to buy carts for a buck a pop at the thrift store, good games that people have actually heard of, but now the only affordable ones are sports games or generic shooters with titles like Army Fighters or Air Force Patrol 1999.

[barrymccaulkinem]

data shows that drm free games sell better than those with drm doesnt it? though idk if that controls for price bc the ones adding drm are also the ones price gouging for a decade at least now (considering no royalties get paid to the ppl who actually made the game)

i understand why other "objectively better" changes arent instituted (for instance schooling kids in a way thats good for them would both interfere with the factory block childcare allowing workers to get stolen from during the day and would also produce a more educated populace, bad for business)

but in this case its just bad business. an extension of "cruelty is the point" that doesnt seem that cruel until you frame it as keeping art out of the minds of the poor at any cost, even your own bottom line

[fictionz]

This is insane.

[jaythelay]

I think that; "Creativity of others building off of others, allowing others to build off of it" is why I keep saying to myself

"could you imagine doing this in Triple A"

I cannot stress enough how much Lethal Company, a 10$ game made by a 16yo, who's work is absolutely, 100%, passionately amateur, who did NOT expect this game to blow up, but the Sheer Amount of Great Work, Creativity, and simplicity, unique design,

Embarrasses The Fuck

Out of Triple A companies.

All of them.

Shame on them for raising prices. Shame on them for bloating their budgets. Shame on them for completely ignoring artistry to focus on polygon counts and absurdly pointless shadows, shame on them for having as big a dev team, company, budget, and history, and not being able to compete with Indie games,

Indie games made by One (1) 16 year old Furry.

They Fucking Lose. They just do.

Triple A can't compete with them. It can be a fluke! They can literally never turn out a good game or update from this very second, the fact remains, Triple A no longer has an excuse for all the barbaric practices, anti-consumerism, price gouging, hiring Addiction Experts, and still, treating their developers like shit, paying them like shit, and meddling in their work when they hired them to make them art to sell, not to fucking manufacture products on an assembly line.

Like. I know. It's alot, but my god man, everytime I saw people bringing up n64 cartridge prices and literally ignoring the entire generation of Discs, and Online Distribution, bringing those costs down basically to zilch in comparison to Thick, Plastic, Cartridges, that Nintendo has Sole Control over the production and thus costs for, in order to justify 70$ pricetags when honest t o g o d 30$ is already a fucking lot for actually any game in history?

Then, this game. It's models were clearly made without a tutorial by someone completely new to it. They just did it, because they fucking could, and god damn, they did. It's Riddled, with problems, missing polygons, the texture sheet is Actual Hell, the Visor is in several parts, the hands are broken because they were modeled the wrong direction, the arm textures are backwards.

It runs at I think a faux 520p? It controls good and not like I'm fucking Drunk. There's Desync issues absolutely everywhere, the modding community basically split the online segment into multiple camps since it doesn't have a workshop to sync mods with, and yet you can literally mod it however fucking way you want, and as long as everyone has it, the game will run fine! I've never felt such smooth modding processes in my life, I literally have my own modpack for my friend group and it's probably better than everyone else's, like alot of the mods I see in packs are kinda unstable or break immer-

Point is, dude, Graphics are Marketing, and they aren't considered that in the budget, half of which is cloning the development budget, so 500 dev, 500 market.

I need you to understand the Vital Difference between "Graphics" and "Artistry" because when I discuss Graphics, I am not discussing artistry, I am discussing Polygon counts, texture counts, shader counts, resolution counts, What about the Artistry Cunts!? What about their counts!

I can VISUALLY show the sheer cliff's edge that is the difference between focusing on Artistry and focusing on Graphics.

This, is Silent Hill, a game from 1999, for the PS1. If you haven't, play it, or watch a video, but no seriously go fucking play it now. Get a fucking CRT, a PS1, and a burned copy because it's too expensive, play it. Now.

There's purpose behind the visuals, they want to instill questions, they want to instill unease, they want you to feel uncomfortable psychologically, to take that unease, and then SLAP you with fear.

Artistry. Purpose, meaning, and intent, behind the visuals.

Honestly they could just do whatever, I don't even need to know if it has a purpose I just don't feel fucking safe here.

It builds up, Slaps ya. There's a purpose to the visuals, and intent to establish your mentality before approaching, and then questioning why, not angrily, but genuinely because you're actually god damned curious.

Seriously, go play Silent Hill. Take it slow, don't kill every enemy you see, turn that flashlight off occasionally, and walk slow when needed.

Now. Graphics.

These are all different images. Of the same fucking game. At different points. Notice the SHEER CLIFF'S EDGE of colors fall off for Green and Blue, occasionally, yellow.

"Oh but that's just select moments of the-"

Literally the kid the getting his neck snapped is near the end and there's absolutely no color theory to anything in the entire game, much less, yes, that fucking moment. Why? God who knows this game has no real ending. No seriously. And that moment is quite literally, the only visceral moment of the entire game, otherwise it's DAMN nothingness and boringness. Apparently a decent speedrun game I heard but, man don't play anything past SH4. Oh yeah, that's a Silent Hill game, you probably couldn't fucking tell honestly.

Point is, there's no meaning behind Graphics. There's no content behind it. It's Legitimately, just to stroke ego. About hardware set ups, about company profiles, about pushing coders careers foward, and, most importantly, marketability. That's fine, to a degree, there's room in the market for that- BUT THE ENTIRE FUCKING TRIPLE A MARKET? SERIOUS-FUCKING-LY?

Because Graphics take such fucking precedent over god damn anything else, these game's budgets are bloated to FUCK to support the broken leg of the industry that seems never to heal despite the BLATANCY of how much BETTER a game can be when ANYONE can fucking play it without thousands of fucking dollars in equipment. AND IT'S NOT EVEN FUCKING OPTIMIZED! IT JUST RUNS GOOD BECAUSE IT'S NOT INTERESTED IN """"BLOWING YOUR MIND VISUALLY WITH RIDICULOUS NEW REALISMS THAT'LL MAKE YOU FUCKING CUM"""""

So damn often a game's gameplay completely suffers for the sake of marketability. Hey, why's this game play like shit? Well, because it's not marketable for them to animate "too arcadey" they have to be 100% fluent, they need pores on their fucking skin, individual microscopic hairs everywhere, each strand of hair needs simulated, the shadows need to be accurate to real life at the actual cost of a kidney, no, the controls can't feel good, because then youtube videos wouldn't look as good, which is actually why games are so fucking grey these days, to forcibly standardize the image accross different screens, to hell with an intended image, you can do shit with dust on the screen, am I going fucking crazy? Why is every game grey, why do we just fucking hate color, there's more color in real life than games hOW DID THAT HAPPEN- the horse is here peter, he wants armor, and paid mods Peter, I'm scared petah (Hunger Games)

THEY MADE A GOOD GAME

DIDN'T EXPECT IT TO BLOW UP

BUT

BECAUSE IT'S A GOOD GAME

HE RAN THE HARD MILE TO GET IT WHERE IT IS NOW

THE DUDE NOW HAS LIKE

MILLIONS OF FUCKING DOLLARS, that's AFTER VALVE'S (Industry standard) CUT AND ALL.

I can MOD the GAME, to WATCH PORN with my FRIENDS on a SPACESHIP

YOU CANNOT

DO THAT

IN ANY TRIPLE A GAME NOW OR LATER NOR THEN.

it's 10$

[sorrythathappened]

I miss Wii U and 3DS-era Nintendo so much. It feels like Switch games slowed to a trickle between 2018 and 2022 and Nintendo’s insistence on releasing one game in a series per console really stings now. Not to mention the utilities and price-gouging…

Frankly, I don’t have faith in Nintendo to make the next console compelling. We’re finally gonna get a new 3D Mario as a launch title and Metroid Prime 4 is also likely for it, but I’m not convinced they have many other cool, original things down the pipeline (and I’m of course forgiving the “dead console walking” phase of the OG Switch next year, as I typically do for the Wii U in 2016.) 2017 was basically the last batch of games Iwata greenlit (Smash Ultimate notwithstanding) and Nintendo still isn’t back to full force. Also, shouldn’t we be hearing about the gimmick by now? It’s alarming that we STILL haven’t heard anything other than “PS4-tier specs.”

God I sound like a boomer.

[beardedmrbean]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit out at Elon Musk's Twitter over its plans to revoke the legacy blue verified checkmarks on April 1.

Twitter announced on Thursday it plans to soon sunset a legacy verified feature that gave users blue checkmarks next to their name. The company said users can sign up to its Twitter Blue subscription program that costs $8 a month to keep their checkmarks.

"Last time they tried this someone pretended to be Eli Lilly and tanked their stock price by pretending insulin was free," AOC tweeted.

In a separate tweet, she said: "And they're rolling this out on April Fool's day."

AOC was referring to the time in November when two Twitter accounts pretended to be insulin-producing pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly. Both accounts paid for Twitter's verification feature, which gave them the blue tick, making them look like Eli Lilly's official account.

One account tweeted that insulin would be free, while the other claimed the price of Humalog, a diabetes drug, would rise to $400. Eli Lilly's stock fell more than 4% in response, according to Forbes.

The company told Insider at the time it was "in conversations with Twitter."

The pharmaceutical giant wasn't the only business to be trolled by other Twitter accounts. McDonald's, Nintendo, Tesla, and BP were among the firms to be impersonated by fake accounts.

Some Twitter users also pretended to be historical figures, celebrities, and politicians, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and O.J. Simpson.

This isn't the first time AOC, who has a gray checkmark because she's a government figure, has hit out at Musk and Twitter over its verification system.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that "free speech" is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," she tweeted. This led to a Twitter spat between the two, with Musk telling her to "pay $8" and AOC calling him a "union buster with an ego problem."

Following the argument, AOC said she was "conveniently" having issues with mentions and notifications on her Twitter account.

AOC didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Twitter automatically responded to Insider's request for comment with a poo emoji.  ____________________________

Mostly here for that last line and to ask the question about when alex decided to stand up and protect the multinational company that price gouges Americans for needed medication.

Bitching about musk is apparently more important than helping people apparently.

[doubleddenden]

I've been thinking. Jirard The Completionist buying up all of the Wii U and 3DS eshop games and donating them to video game historians is a massive step towards game preservation. That is definitely something impressive he did

But now I'm just thinking of those games that got pulled before he was finished. Before he started even.

He shouldn't have had to spend $24k on this just to preserve them.

Honestly I really think that if a game company is not going to make a reasonable method of legally obtaining a game through traditional means without having to resort to hundreds or thousands of dollars through second hand, they should be free to emulate and available through libraries of some kind. Hell I'll go a step further and say that any game over 10 years of release should be free and legal to emulate.

I know lawmakers and a lot of society may not understand why it's such a big deal, but video games have just as big of an impact on society as books, music, and movies. I'd argue that it's a marriage of the three+ user interaction that really adds a degree of personalization you just can't get from the others unless you've had a personal hand in creating them. A lot of culture has changed and been affected by games- and hell, games even give people the opportunity to interact with the past in a historical or meta sense. RDR2 for instance gives you a small glimpse of life back in the later 1800s, and Donkey Kong Arcade machines are literally historical pieces from an era before house-hold gaming was really viable.

And you know the really, really terrible thing out of this? The data from Jirard's spree is under 2 terabytes. That's not even a server at that point. That's literally a few modern games. They literally had them contained in a few external hard drives and SD cards. Was that really that hard to keep operational? To me, this is just Nintendo ensuring they can port these to the Switch and beyond for a higher price, or worse- sweep some under the rug forever.

Pirating imo has done more for game conservation than Nintendo ever has tbh.

In that light, I think a few things should okay, legal, and done:

1. If a game is no longer available to purchase by reasonable means on modern consoles for a reasonable price without having to resort to price gouged second hand sales, it should be legally free to download, distribute, and emulate

2. If a game console with specific specs is no longer available to customers via reasonable means, it should be legal to emulate on pc or legal to replicate the tech required to do so for a reasonable price. Think like the Retron 5, but for Wii, GameCube, DS, 3DS, and WiiU.

3. There should be fun and accessible museums dedicated to the preservation of older games and other entertainment media, and provide access to those that wish to experience the games as originally intended. Located not just in big cities in California or NYC, but also in smaller cities and states/countries across the globe.

4. From this point onward, there needs to be a larger effort to ensure backwards capability of older games on modern consoles. That means going forward, something like what happens after the Switch needs to be able to support Switch games as well as new ones. For disc based games especially, would it really be that hard to program a ps5 to run a ps2 disc through an internal emulator?

If the tech is no longer being made to play these, and if the old tech or old games are deteriorating, the very least that can be done is to ensure the old still can live on somehow with the new.

[dwagom]

if you (correctly) think that disney is an overgrown company that uses its de facto monopolistic position to exploit its employees, gouge prices, warp intellectual property legislation, exert inordinate control over media using intellectual property laws, use its culturally and financially dominant position to release clearly unfinished or sub-par products into a market that for multiple reasons can not say no, then you are making the same case in favour of breaking up nintendo as well

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

#20yrsago BBC’s new site learns from you https://memex.craphound.com/2002/11/20/bbcs-new-site-learns-from-you/

#20yrsago Turducken: chicken-in-duck-in-turkey https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/dining/turkey-finds-its-inner-duck-and-chicken.html

#15yrsago Disney lawyers enstupidize ride with dumb legal disclaimer https://www.flickr.com/photos/unsupervised/2050682942/

#15yrsago UK tax authorities repeatedly lose 25m peoples’ tax records https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/nov/21/immigrationpolicy.socialexclusion

#15yrsago Sardine in Outer Space: Cheerful anarchist comix for kids https://memex.craphound.com/2007/11/20/sardine-in-outer-space-cheerful-anarchist-comix-for-kids/

#10yrsago Beyond the public debt: making a wider case for openness https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/nov/20/pharmaceutical-research-open-access

#10yrsago US publishers sabotage treaty on the rights of people with print disabilities https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/lets-close-deal-treaty-blind-and-print-disabled

#10yrsago Buyer beware: Nintendo nukes $400 worth of downloaded content during DRM-fail migration to Wii U https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/how-nintendo-drm-trapped-400-of-downloaded-games-on-my-failing-wii/

#5yrsago Scientist puts his dog on the editorial boards of seven predatory journals as proof of their negligence https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/the-perth-dog-thats-probably-smarter-than-you-ng-a4de0d201ce420e0302c69532a399419

#5yrsago Puerto Rico, abandoned by Trump and facing disaster capitalism looting by big business, turns to socialist and anarchist collectives to rebuild https://www.nybooks.com/online/2017/11/17/puerto-ricos-diy-disaster-relief/

#5yrsago America’s private health-care is rationed, but socialized medicine is luxury medicine https://jacobin.com/2017/11/single-payer-health-care-medicare

#5yrsago How technology’s built in “engagement maximization” destroys mental health in the Trump age, and what to do about it https://memex.craphound.com/2017/11/20/how-technologys-built-in-engagement-maximization-destroys-mental-health-in-the-trump-age-and-what-to-do-about-it/

#5yrsago After Roy Moore threatens to sue AL.com, the publisher puts him on notice to preserve all documents for their countersuit https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/932351827756056586

#1yrago Inflation or price-gouging?: Big business loves inflation talk https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/20/quiet-part-out-loud/#profiteering

[1eos]

Seeing you talk about hacking your ds made me finally attempt to homebrew my Wii and it's the best I'm having so much fun so thanks for inspiring! I also put an emulator on my phone I had no idea it was so easy I'm never buy a game again. Do you have any favorite emulators?

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOMEBROWHIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! its going to be fucking on when the reddit girlies figure out how to hack the switch. like nintendo should be ashamed of themselves for the price gouging they do. but yesss emulation is super easy! i love it bc there are so many games i would not be able to play without it. i think my fave emulator is pcsx2! its a playstation 2 emulator and it runs so smoothly with no issues at all ive been having so much fun playing devil summoner on it! i think i might try to find an iso of star ocean 3 and play thru that next!

[longsufferingcritic]

Intellectual property was never intended for or even particularly useful for “protecting small artists”. It was always designed to give bigger profits to the likes of Disney, Nintendo, Adobe, pharmaceuticals(!), printer ink... By design, it institutes corporate monopolies and restricts or prohibits free sharing of information.

IP law is what has allowed a cartel of 3-4 corporations to price-gouge insulin, because they have patents over the most effective forms. IP law is why the Covid vaccines were initially barred from Global South countries, because the pharmaceutical companies fought against patent waivers even in the midst of a global health emergency.

IP law is what allowed a man to censor anyone on the internet from even indirectly referencing rape accusations made against him, because he bought an old newspaper archive and thus now “owns” the decades-old article describing the accusations. In fact, filing copyright takedowns is a favorite tactic of abusive individuals and corporations alike to censor their critics, because unlike defamation charges, DMCA requires no stringent court proceedings to force something offline.

IP law is what got 3 people arrested for “infringing” on Club Penguin, a game that no longer exists and the fan recreation of which was not being run for profit. IP law is what allowed the RIAA to sue random people into bankruptcy for the “crime” of downloading songs. IP law is largely why proprietary software -- everything from operating systems to art programs to printer ink -- is so prone to abuse on so many levels.

I could go on. Objectively, any benefits a small artist might get from IP are far outweighed by corporations using IP as it was intended: to crush people’s (including small artists’) freedoms for profit. That’s why they lobby for it so strongly.

Is that really what you want to be defending? Are you sure this is necessary, that we as a society cannot come up with something better to genuinely protect small artists? I, for one, think that we can, but first we must be honest about the nature of the situation to begin with. IP law is part of the problem with regards to corporate oppression, not the solution.

[gadgetsling]

Why the Steam Deck is the best handheld console of all time

The Steam Deck from Valve is a powerful, versatile gaming handheld that feels wonderful. The Deck allows you to carry your games with you wherever you go. Just don't expect it to last very long though. Additionally, some games may not function properly right out of the box. In spite of persistent GPU supply concerns and price gouging, it would be an understatement to suggest that PC gaming has experienced a rebirth in recent years. So it's no surprise that when Valve unveiled the Steam Deck ($399 to begin with, $649 as tested). Gamers were ecstatic at the prospect of playing their favorite games on what appeared to be a high-quality handheld device. Previous portable PCs, such as the Aya Neo, aren't exactly household names, and they normally cost a lot more. It gives the Nintendo Switch an even more slimline appearance than it already has. In comparison, your Game Gear from infancy was insignificant. This thing takes up a lot of room. The portable from Steam Deck is large! The black plastic gadget measures 11.73 inches wide, 4.6 inches tall, and 1.93 inches deep (298 x 117 x 49 mm). This is much longer and thicker than a conventional Nintendo Switch, which measures 9.4 x 4 x 0.5 inches. Even yet, it's considerably smaller than the greatest gaming laptops. The construction quality is excellent. With the exception of the seams that go around the sides, everything feels great.

Is Steam Deck better than the Nintendo Switch?

Indeed, the games are the most significant distinction here, not the hardware. The Steam Deck is a PC stuffed into a compact box that can play games from the popular Steam service. The Switch is designed to play Nintendo games or games that are streamed from the cloud. So, if you want to play blockbusters at the highest possible frame rates and performance, the Steam Deck is the way to go. In most games, the Aya Neo Next is able to impress the Steam Deck, especially ones that significantly rely on the CPU. Because the Valve's Deck is a basic device, it will be lighter, more portable, and have a significantly better price-to-performance ratio than its predecessors can. It can also be used as a personal computer by connecting to a dock. This is by far one of the most flexible gaming handhelds to date! Even while the Aya Neo Next was running in 28W mode, the Steam Deck beat the Aya Neo Next in God of War. Both devices maintained 60 frames per second, although the Aya Neo Next experienced fewer frame rate dips.

Is the Deck Worth the Price Tag?

The price of the Aya Neo Next is a problem. The device costs $1,385, which is more than three times the price of Valve's Steam Deck, which starts at $399. From a performance aspect, the Deck is a capable handheld gaming device. Nonetheless, thanks to the console's beefier processor and more generous thermal limitations, the Aya Neo Next outperformed the Aya Neo in some CPU-intensive games. If you're searching for a more powerful device with more internal storage than the Steam Deck and don't mind spending a bit more, the Aya Neo Next is a fantastic choice. Steam Deck is the way to go for people searching for a good handheld gaming device with a large selection of games at a reasonable price. If you can't get one by reserving through Valve's website, your next best bet is to grab one from Ebay! Good luck gamers! Gadgetsling – Where Tech Matters 🤖 Read the full article

[barrymccaulkinem]

im glad to finally be allowing myself to be excited about new zelda. i still hate nintendo for putting a stink on it with this price gouge stunt

[hilli98215]

Update on the Nintendo Switch look out.

It seems the one moment I find it through GameSpot, it sold out.

It looks like I will be getting it through Amazon and waiting for it to be in stock. Which sucks since that is my last resort. However, Amazon is the only site that gave me a date and range of when they'll be back in stock.

But I will say this. If you are going to get any game system through Amazon, look for the retail price. There are a lot of people who like to resell systems at a higher price. I saw a price that was almost 500$. Nope! Not gonna do it!

[holdtightposts]

Official licensed Animal Crossing water bottle. It’s so beautiful.

UPDATE:

MORE UPDATES:

Listing was removed from amazon but you can get it directly from the distributors themselves here. I already pre ordered mines.

https://controllergear.com/index.php/designs/animal-crossing/dwnixxbts-0mati.html

ANOTHER UPDATE:

Use coupon code LOYALGAMER for 15% off. We’re hitting hard times and it’s going to get tougher from here on out and every little thing helps.