The secret is that they actually never have rewritten it. Dig into the code and every single version, even the iOS/Android port, is just the 1998 PC version with hacks on top. The 1998 Windows EXE is even included in the iOS version.
Fingers crossed that this is a real rewrite to allow a modern mobile port.
Maybe it’s just me but I kind of hope it does.
I love the mods but they work because the 2013 version is just the 1998 version repackaged. Why would SE make yet another version based on the rickety old codebase of the 1998 version? If that was the case this would just be a version update. I know the response will be “cash grab” but they’re giving it away for free to anyone with the 2013 version so that doesn’t fit either.
This strategy is why the mobile port of FFVII is also awful, it’s literally just the PC port in a virtualization wrapper. The 1998/2013 version will be around for anyone who wants to use the mods. I’m hoping to see something akin to the Unity rebuild we got for FFIX, which will allow a wave of new supported ports for mobile as well.
Unfortunate they are delisting the 2013 version though. That does mean that there may no longer be a moddable version available, which is definitely a regression.
It’s heavily used everywhere else in the world, the US is well-known to lag behind on payment technology. It’s like travelling back in time when you go there.
I pay with my phone literally everywhere in Canada, haven’t opened my wallet in months. I was in the US last year and they didn’t have mobile payment terminals at restaurants so you always had to pay for sit down service at a counter, always wanted me to sign for tap, kept calling it Apple Pay instead of tap or contactless, had places that would only swipe a physical card which isn’t even allowed in other countries anymore, it’s crazy.
Walmart takes tap in Canada, they were one of the last holdouts. The “individual app for each service” thing is very American, even American companies abroad don’t do it because they’ll lose business. It’s the same thing with cash transfers. There are 100 different private ways to send money in the US. PayPal, CashApp, Facebook Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, etc.
None of those exist in Canada because we just have Interac e-transfers. Hard to compete with free & automatic support by every bank account in the country. Other countries have similar systems. The US has Zelle but as far as I know that was implemented way later and doesn’t have the mindshare.
I think it’s because the market changed around them. When the 3DS launched they were one of the only companies providing decent BC. Now, everyone does it and people expect games to actually play better on the new devices.
Still a surprise that Nintendo got the message, but with the dozen first party games that got free patches it was clear this was a new era for them. I’m playing Pokemon Violet right now after beating Scarlet a few years ago and it’s like a whole new game on Switch 2, all the performance issues are just gone.
It’s only “outrageously” priced compared to its predecessor, and only if you don’t think about it too much. Considering under the hood it’s basically a phone or tablet, it’s very fairly priced considering the specs.
The Switch 1 is basically a tablet from 2017 being sold for $300. It never received a price drop despite it using 8 year old technology, it actually received a price increase with the OLED model. An iPad 5th Gen from 2017 sells for $50 on eBay, for comparison purposes. Not like for like as that has a way higher res screen and less RAM, but it’s fairly close.
As it’s a new chip with an expected 10 year lifespan, it’s likely on 3nm process which means it has to fight for manufacturing time with TSMC because they’re the only ones who can fab that sort of chip.
All that, plus the expectation that they will be absorbing some tariff costs for now means it will likely never see a price drop, and honestly doesn’t seem that bad in terms of pricing. It’s the cheapest console on the market with the exception of the very underpowered and useless Series S, and it’s competitively priced in terms of the tech under the hood.
So if it will be the cheapest console of its generation, is already cheaper than its ancient competition, is cheaper than a mid range GPU by itself, and is cheaper or comparably priced with similarly specced devices, then how is it so overpriced?
The only argument I’ve heard yet has been “consoles are sold at a loss because the games are expensive” but that hasn’t been true for the industry since the PS4 era, and it’s literally never been true for Nintendo consoles, they always make a profit right out of the gate. So I honestly don’t get it.
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I guess that would be the case if you bought it, beat it and sold it, but most people in that scenario would already own it and then they would just buy the upgrade pack. This $90 option is only for people who don’t own the game in any form yet.
The idea that any significant contingent of people would not own it in any form, then suddenly want to play it on Switch 2 but would balk at the asking price seems unlikely, certainly not enough to cut the price in half.
If they wanted a cheaper option they could always just buy a used Switch copy and then just buy the upgrade pack. I would prefer cheaper Nintendo games too but the reality is this won’t cost them that many sales.
They really wouldn’t. They would have to triple or quadruple sales to take that sort of a hit. As it stands it’s one of the best selling games of all time already, basically everyone interested in it already owns it.
Financially, they made the right decision. As annoying as it is from the consumer side.
This city is a big chicken, just waiting for me to pluck it.
shrug
Almost all video game retailers in Canada are American, so I was going to buy it direct from Nintendo anyways to cut them out and those preorders have always been set for May 8th.
Other speculation is just that it will cause US scalpers to try to snag all the Canadian preorders through reshipping services or crossing the border. So ostensibly they are doing it to protect our stock.
Makes sense to me, but who knows.
In Canada it’s $629CAD, in Ontario with 13% sales tax that comes to about $710CAD, which is about $9CAD higher than 450EUR.
In the US, $450USD comes to $639CAD, which means the pre-tax CAD price is actually CHEAPER than the USD price. On top of all of that, they just announced preorders are paused in the US due to tariffs.
I actually think Canada is getting off pretty good here. If you can get your hands on 2, I suspect the Canadian model will be doing gang busters on eBay for all the Americans looking for one, so that’s a nice bonus too.
It wasn’t even originally an American thing, it’s from the UK.
That’s actually the main reason most left, Lemmy has never seen a bigger increase in MAU before or after the death of 3rd party apps.
Not to say the other stuff isn’t important, but for me Reddit WAS Apollo. Without it, it didn’t even feel like the same service. Enough people felt the same about their preferred apps that they left en masse in 2023.
So many column inches and yet all the American articles dodge the real issue. Tariffs are bad and threatening the economy has made them a lot of enemies, but that isn’t why Canadians suddenly did a heel turn on our election and are united across provincial, social and political borders in opposition to the US.
It’s because Trump repeatedly threatened our sovereignty, belittled our government and insulted us. We can take jokes on the chin, nobody cares being called maple syrup drinking hosers that live in America’s hat and only care “aboot” hockey.
We care that our existence as a country has been threatened, repeatedly and specifically. It’s hilarious reading American articles deliberately ignore this, when it’s all the Canadian media can talk about.
When your biggest ally can’t even commit to not using military force to invade you or annex you, you fight back. When foreign oligarchs think they can put their finger on the scale in your election, you fight back.
People are fucking pissed & united, in a way I’ve never seen before in this country and if they think we’re just going to lie down they have another thing coming. Put that in a goddamn article.
Yeah I really tried with DDG, switched my phone to it for 2 months. I was using !g so often it made the whole thing pointless.
Google sucks, but right now nothing is better. This is why they’re able to push their AI bullshit results so heavily, because just like with YouTube, ultimately there is no real competition.
Is it just me or is that the worst name for a car in the history of the automobile?
Bingo. This is 100% the reason, and it’s funny that people assume anything else. When you can just watch porn at any time with no effort, sex scenes are gratuitous and awkward distractions except in rare circumstances.
I still use the machine that ruined my life and drove me crazy, but only because I’m too lazy to type “lasagna recipe” in to Google.