It’s not that rare earth minerals are this rare, it’s that their extraction is extremely bad for the environment so most western countries are happy to make it a brown people problem.

Trump is a moron in general and his narcissistic/hyperactive behaviour is cringe-worthy but fabs don’t get built in a single term. Biden continued many of Trumps policies because they were popular, funding ICE and increasing deportations included.

We’re good for now, at least on surface. Given that Switch 2 prices in the US didn’t go up after tariffs it seems like we’re subsidising Yanks for some reason. There’s also Japan-exclusive region-locked Switch 2 SKU that’s about $350.

What are the resources required to build electronics that are unavailable in the US? There’s no infrastructure, yeah, but saying a country the size of US is limited in what’s available resource-wise sounds silly.

All you’re saying it’s complex and that it will take time. Americans put a man on the moon, they’re a resourceful bunch. Some got pretty lazy though.

I don’t think people in Asia are different from others and will likely be interested in pivoting their economies to be less dependent on a single thing. China already started so things moved to Vietnam, Indonesia etc. which for now are cheaper. Eventually „the west” is going to run out of places to outsource dirty work to. Colonialism is visibly losing steam, hence the rise of fascism which is just colonialism pointed inwards.

Why? Do you mean the only viable model is to outsource cheap labour to Asia forever? People over there will move on eventually.

It’s not viable without upsetting those who benefit from status quo, that’s for sure. Many people don’t seem to be happy with that status quo though. They picked wrong answer to the correct question but they weren’t that far off.

Well, long term Americans could be making Nintendo Switches domestically. They’d be more expensive but blue collar workers could be making more money. It’s not entirely dumb as everyone here paints it even if the implementation is laughably bad. Previous term Orange man made TSMC build a cutting-edge fab which by now is operational which is also pretty important for supply chain security in case China invades Taiwan. Europe would be fucked because we didn’t do enough for domestic manufacturing. Of course Orange man can’t make up his mind between using tariffs to forward personal agenda and meddling with internal politics of trading partners of the US but sometimes he gets it right. Toys being slightly more expensive is probably lower than tan spray on his list of priorities.

How does amount of units sold in one country that decided to enact tariffs relates to prices of products sold between other sovereign countries? I would like to emphasise that world doesn’t revolve around the US and that US citizens democratically made it clear that they are no longer interested in attempting to make it so.

Video game console prices didn’t rise because Brazil has high tariffs on electronics.

That’s just rose tinted glasses, there are loads of unique games that are leaps and bounds above Mario 64 or Halo, even from AAA studios. Off top of my head (so probably skewed toward recent releases): Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Tears of the Kingdom, Unicorn Overlord, Helldivers 2, Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, Returnal, Half Life: Alyx. Saying there are no impactful games is disrespectful to amazing work that’s still being done. They don’t have as much of a visible impact because new generation of gamers chose to play Fortnite and Genshin Impact instead.

This low power mode has RAM running at half the bandwidth which will really kneecap performance but is a common way to increase efficiency in mobile devices. If it was about saving power they wouldn’t make adapting existing games this hard IMO.

Web browsers are the most resource intensive apps these days. Dedicated app doesn’t have to run JavaScript or ask for UI elements over network so it’s better for both battery and bandwidth.

Sony just introduced a low-power mode for PS5 that looks like groundwork for some kind of PS5-compatible handheld so this ”leak” sounds very unlikely from the get go.

Never let an opportunity to sell more stuff go to waste. GOG probably haven’t been targeted by payment processors yet so they can play tough.

Nintendo tends to keep their previous-gen as a budget option. Wii Mini launched as Wii U was coming out, same with New 2DS XL and Switch.

Experience curve was such a slog at level 70 and upwards that I never understood how people ever got to 99 (or rebirth for that matter). I’m not sure anyone was ever very good at RO, even at high level guild battlegrounds it only ever looked like random mayhem. I think most of us were there to sink time and escape reality via cute hats.

It hasn’t been that long, I’m just 40 and was playing RO maniacally until I was 20 or so.

I have very fond memories of hanging out south of Prontera gate on one of the first independently developed private servers where it was like maybe 3 maps, monsters and items implemented. It was running for an hour every day because the dev was running it straight off his PC. That handful of people I met there was my pack for many years and we migrated from one public beta to another because we couldn’t afford official servers. Fun times. I feel a relapse coming.

Huh, it was the opposite here (Poland), at least prior to launch because there are no shortages now. If you’re buying Switch 2 today it’s probably for Mario Kart World and this is cheaper than buying it separate.

Gaming has been an expensive hobby always and adjusted for inflation games are cheaper now than they were historically. If a game is too expensive for me I buy second hand and then sell it once I’m done with it and that’s still possible with Switch 2 games. Mario Kart games provide lots of enjoyment for a long time though so people are inclined to buy and keep them even at $80.