Nintendo has raised its employees base salary by 10%
mynintendonews.com
mynintendonews.com
In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents (3 yen - source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/japanese-snack-company-apolog...)
The country for better or worse seems to be frozen in time - salaries have not caught up with the heady levels of SV (or even Europe) but neither have rents or prices for common goods.
This is not a judgment either way - but it does make Japanese exports a significantly more lucrative business - if only they could figure out how to sell more of their stuff abroad!
No, there really isn't. You're looking at one company that "apologized" as a marketing play but outside of that prices have been increasing with no fanfare for years now. The annual inflation rate has been 2-3% for the past 4 years. It's a lot less interesting to write a news article about that though.
Granted, accommodation is not one of them. Especially if you compare Tokyo to London, Paris or even Geneva.
Not cheap. I managed to find a room in SF for like $250 when I was looking, though you’d have to reserve it a week in advance. Is Tokyo really that expensive now?
But what I meant was accommodation for residents and not hotels. I would much rather have to find a flat and live in Tokyo rather than any other big city in the world.
Oh yes the budget option for thrifty vacationers
Normal inflation for the last 4 years is basically still nothing in the grand scheme of things.
All the price increases over the last few years disagree.
The closest thing would be the "16Pc Classic Signature Chicken Family Meal," which is $55.69 at that location and is described as feeding between 6 and 8 people. So you'd need to tip a bit to get to $68 from there.
Also, that meal doesn’t include drinks. Poppies is significantly cheaper if you’re taking it home and supplementing with your own drinks.
I just tried it with the "8pc meal" and 3 fountain drinks for the same location, and it came to $39.36, including tax.
(If you want to try for yourself, I picked the Popeye's at 45 N Orange Blossom in Orlando, FL.)
I’ve seen 2 active teens at healthy body weights split that 8pc meal + a side of biscuits. Obviously if you’re talking about a 6 year old the numbers are different.
That’s my point, family of 3 isn’t some standard size.
Or maybe, just maybe, the idea that it costs the typical family of three $68 to eat at Popeye’s is just utter bullshit?
That said, 8pc meal is a discount, you can get charged more for the same food if they aren’t all ordering the same thing. Also, don’t forget the extra side of biscuits I mentioned, teens can be shockingly ravenous beasts.
Similarly not all locations have the same pricing.
A 5pc chicken tenders, Mac and cheese, and a large drink is $25 before tax. If there are three people who get a similar meal (but not exact so they don't share the family meals) then the total is $75 before tax. Seems like the original price quote of $68 is certainly plausible for a group of three. I am sure its possible to feed three people for less like you claim, but that doesn't mean the $68 is impossible to reach.
And then you ordered an amount of calories greater than the recommended amount for an adult for the entire day. Sure, some people eat that, but is that remotely a useful metric to answer the question of what it costs the typical family of three to eat at Popeye’s? No.
What region? Putting that same order together for a location near me is $16.23 after tax. Putting in the address above (45 N Orange Blossom in Orlando, FL.), the total was $17.35 after tax.
IMO what matters is what you pay; the numbers they post on the menus and other media aren't useful.
(It doesn't seem implausible to me that you'd pay $20/pp for food in most parts of the US; I'm responding purely to the hearsay claim that someone paid $68 for 3 people. I can't square that unless you actually bought twice as much food, and then some.)
The family meals are substantially cheaper than individual meals, if you can get everyone to agree on bone-in chicken and the same 2 sides.
A 20% tip would push that up to something like $66.
That can't be true. So inflation just doesn't exist in Japan?
In the same way you can "break" the laws of thermodynamics by getting every atom to move in the same direction at the same time, you can "break" the laws of economics by getting every person to make the same illogical choice at the same time.
You state the choices as “illogical”, but those choices can be logical based off a different set of values.
Similarly, if you have a different set of axioms, you can build a different reasonable system on it.
It's like Euclidean geometry and Non-Euclidian geometry. They are both valid systems based off of different axioms. Similarly, the different economic systems are valid based off of different set of societal values.
You can also compare it to the ideal gas law. It's a law, but is based of a hypothetical ideal gas. Similarly, the economic laws are based off of a hypothetical society. The ideal gas law does not hold in all conditions, and economic laws do not hold in all conditions.
The economic laws are meant as tools to predict behavior. But ironically, we end up modifying our behaviors to fit the laws, and we weaponize the usage of "economic laws" to control the behavior of others.
We have economists complain how "that economic system doesn't work". Yes, it doesn't work with the laws that define your economic system, but it works with a different set of laws. We have people say, "that doesn't make sense because of X law". It's the other way around. The "law" doesn't make sense, because I value something different.
to break the laws of thermodynamics locally, you need to have an open system where the tally is made up elsewhere
is japan following a unified culture of choices the result of other people doing extra outside of japan?
When you have 10 atoms bouncing around you can pretty easily "break" the laws because you don't have the statistical mass for aggregate behaviors (what we call the laws) to arise.
So it's not really a law that entropy must increase, it's more a 99.999...% (envision a lot of 9's there) chance it will, and the number of 9's is proportionate to the number of energy points in the system.
I guess the salaries are lower, but it’s hard to imagine such cheap rent in the equivalent American city.
I spent a couple years traveling the world and punctuated my travels with a 2 week stop in Japan (Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto) in May '24. I was not prepared for how inexpensive everything was... much less than several eastern European cities I had just come from, more on par with places like Mexico City.
The limits seem to be from legal restrictions on minimum apartment size, not market demand.
Doesn't change that it would be nice to have such offerings without having to navigate all of the extra stuff that comes from having roommates.
That is, I was specifically saying there is a lack of appetite to offer these. Not that there is lack of appetite to buy/rent them.
But there are interesting experiments going on. Where I live (Toronto) has had a huge build-out of small ~4-500sqf bachelors that were hoovered up by flippers and mom-n-pop landlords. At the peak of the boom, they were selling for ridiculous prices ($800K+) and the poor build quality of everything from elevators (of which there often weren't enough, resulting in lineups and long waits) to water pipes that burst meant that savvy prospective owners stay clear.
There's a correction happening, but people don't want to unload their "investments" at below what they cost and since mortgages are recourse people can't just walk away.
In theory there should be demand for these units from the young, corporate owners, 2nd homes in the city, etc. But the prices have just not come down enough to make any of those worthwhile.
Would love to see more on the correction you are referencing. So much of the discourse I see focusing on "starter homes." Which, these are not that.
Alas, I think there is such a heavy anti-landlord attitude around that nobody wants to be said landlord. Worse, towns don't like having apartment complexes. Worse still, we don't do anything to incentivize moving back to these neighborhoods for the people that do move away to work.
Intuitively, it would make sense for housing prices to decrease when the demand decreases, supply being equal (It's not like housing deteriorates significantly in the short term).
that also leads to a lot of experimentation in architecture, since this building ain't gonna last so get weird. downside is it leads to a prefab corner cutting approach.
my brother lived in japan for a while and he loved it, both the long-standing rural places that were legit old school, but also when he was in the city and sublet some hypermodern, querky places on the cheap.
There is a history of substantially updating building regulations every time a new record is set for largest earthquake in the modern era; and so if you are buying historical, you are buying a less safe property that could kill you.
The last major earthquake updates to the code were in 2000, so there isn’t a lot of historical housing stock without this confounding factor.
Occasionally if you get unusual spikes in building materials and labour costs then the house itself can appreciate in value because it costs more to replace it, but that's rare enough.
Also building a house or apt building that can stand for 100 years is very different from one that stands forever, for example steel beams can be used as foundation instead of having to pour concrete
Not all of Tokyo is nice either. They also probably won’t rent to “outsiders” without giving any explanation so…
> Here is a startling fact: in 2014 there were 142,417 housing starts in the city of Tokyo (population 13.3m, no empty land), more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).
Does it?
The fact that the JPY has lost a lot of value compared to the US dollar has nothing to do with how prices or salaries in Japan evolve.
1. Issue bonds at near zero or even negative yield.
2. Buy US bonds.
The country is still one of the largest foreign US debt holders at $1.191T, and interest from this debt pays for a significant fraction of the interest on their own debt.
China Home Prices Fall at Faster Pace in Setback to Revival - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/china-hom... - June 15th, 2026
China Housing Demand to Stay at 75% Below Peak, Goldman Says - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-17/china-hou... | https://archive.today/LkbCF - June 16th, 2025
It completely misses the mark on human behaviour of those living in scarcity. Inflation forces them to save whatever they can in the most stable and liquid medium (cash). As a result it creates a very strong force pushing low income individuals further down, it takes a lot of hard work and luck to get out.
Those with enough wealth don't need the same liquidity or stability, they have the luxury to invest and see their wealth grow and outpace inflation. As a result of this security they are more willing to spend on products and services.
Inflation causes scarcity for the poor and security for the wealthy.
The lower inflation is the less scarcity for the poor, and they will be more willing to spend and invest. Even in a environment with 0 inflation the wealthy still have incentive not to hoard cash. The incencentive to invest was never about the devaluation of cash, but rather the outpacing return of value that investment brings. Theoretically that still exists even in a deflationary environment, though I do suspect high enough deflation would have drastic negative impacts on the market to the point where returns are too low to justify the risk.
Older customers who have an idea in their mind of how much something is worth based on how much they've previously paid may eventually feel cheated and stop buying, but there's always a new generation of customers who never knew any better. There are things they can do to offset the backlash like they might offer a sale at the same time as they increase prices to give customers time to get used to the new sticker price. They keep the price the same and try to hide the fact that they're giving customers less product.
it's pretty shortsighted though because it makes our money increasingly worthless and eventually we'll end up like Zimbabwe and a loaf of bread will cost us $100.
It's easy to boil it down and say greed or capitalism but I don't think it is a very reasoned position.
>Prices for goods in Europe in the sixteenth century rose to about four times the level that had prevailed during the preceding three centuries, increasing poverty levels but also raising the profit potential for those who were in a position to exploit an economy that was suddenly based primarily upon money and credit rather than labor and trade. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/worldwide-in...
Not sure if they were fully capitalistic by then but that was a long time ago.
I also know that Japan has had inflation for a long time, reading history about coins and looking up the worth of a mon that would be 10000 to 1 yen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_cash_coins_by...
IMHO, inflation is driven by both greed (not just companies, everyone wants their retirement portfolio to go up) and increased money supply. The USA has a large amount of deficit spending, this is money that we just magic into existence. We have used it recently to try and manage crisis like 2008 GFC and COVID but I don't think that it is a coincidence that after those two events the costs of everything went up.
Worldwide the prevailing economic theory is that deflation is bad, I am not sure but unless we are willing to allow for some deflation you will only every have inflation.
Cost of living requires that. Also, even when my job responsibilities and workload don't change, my skills do. Someone who has gained valuable skill and experience should be better compensated than someone showing up for their first day of work.
Is it also greed when consumers want to pay as little as possible? (In some ways, of course it is, but at some point, the loaded term greed isn’t particularly helpful towards understanding perfectly ordinary microeconomic behavior.)
Yeah, sometimes it is. People should be paid a fair amount for the resources, time and effort they put into something. Greed seems fitting when the motivation is just an endless repeating of "I want to give you less while taking more of your money for myself" although more often it's "for the company's shareholders".
Pushing for ever-increasing profit at all costs is what corporations do. Calling it anything but greed is just misrepresenting their nature.
Yeah, well their job is to get the best price for their product. Just as it is your job to get as much money as possible for your product, i.e. your talents and labors.
In a competitive economy with informed buyers this greed is what makes things cheap and high quality. Think about two grocery store owners in a small town. They've settled into an equilibria with each other to keep the status quo and not get greedy for a bigger share of the market by competing on price or quality. Then one day, seeing an opportunity, a new grocer moves in with fresher fruit, a wider variety of products and most importantly lower prices. All the customers go over to that grocery store and the old grocers have the choice to improve or die. From the point-of-view of the previous grocery store owners the new grocery store is "greedy", but it ends up benefiting everyone else.
In any market where competition exists, companies compete against other companies for customers. Any company that doesn't (for whatever reason) maximize it's net income is likely to cease to exist at some point, or at the least is unlikely to grow. As a result, not being 'greedy' is usually not a viable strategy.
Describing simple self interest as 'greed' is inherently loaded and reductionist. Look at the natural world; pretty much all living organisms exhibit self-interested behaviors (at least at the group or species level, if not the individual level). Are all of those 'greedy' too? You could say yes and not be wrong, but in doing so you would dilute the meaning of the word 'greed'.
If you know a $100 item will probably cost $102 later then you're more likely to buy it now. But if that item will cost $98 in a deflationary environment, then maybe you'll wait to buy it later. Wages also tend to fall in deflation, which makes it harder to pay back debt, so lending slows down - people won't buy houses or cars, etc. Businesses hold back on capital spending. The economy slows to a standstill: if no one is spending money, how can anyone make money?
And debts adjust their rates along with inflation/deflation so that effect ends up much smaller.
As for houses and cars, we desperately need to make the economy less focused on the value of houses and cars...
Zero inflation even as a target would be hard to hit, as it would imply some absolute perfect match of supply/demand for goods.
Deflation leads to the opposite behavior - hoard your resources, don't invest, don't lend, don't hire. This then cascades through economy in a downward spiral.
One mechanism of inflation is that it effectively lowers wages (and other contracts) without negotiation. Asset prices are valued by markets and increase with inflation. It effectively transfers wealth from wage earners to capital owners.
Deflation would effectively increase wages instead, and require occasional renegotiations if productivity isn't keeping pace.
I think the argument from symmetry still holds, but it leads into a different conclusion. Since products (goods, physical assets) depreciate in value over time, money must too decrease in value. Hence you get inflation.
I believe that "natural rate of inflation" is driven by natural depreciation of goods and the free market mechanism that exchanges money and products as you describe.
I'm hand-waving a lot of arguments and considerations with this statement, but from my perspective one advantage to 2-3% inflation is to incentivize owning capital that will outpace inflation. Land, equity, and bonds all have that potential.
Deflation may incentivize renegotiation of labor, but it also incentivizes hoarding of cash, which itself is not otherwise valuable. The value comes from it being passed around through the economy buying more assets. The more purchases -> the more money to be passed around -> the more opportunity to grow the economy. In a deflationary environment (at least in theory) this slows all of that down and decreases economic opportunity, which we generally don't want.
What about 1 or 2% deflation? People would still need food, to replace or repair cars. People would still want and need to buy houses.
Inflation to my mind supposes that we have to have perpetual growth, which is something that is not realistic.
If we grow 3 times the amount of corn that we need this year, do we need to plan to grow 3.1 times next year? Or decrease the cost by 2%? If all the inputs stay the same, where do you get the gains from(assuming that the process is as efficient and automated as possible)?
I think that by printing money and expecting a 1~2% gain every year we just end up robbing ourselves. Companies play games by not giving raises right away, moving production to areas of LCOL or shrinking goods and services but our retirement portfolios go up. Then at the end of the day, you are on a fixed income and having to squeeze down on your consumption.
As I said to a sibling, it is easy to say companies are greedy but how many of us are buying a more expensive product because we know that they treat their employees well? Or do we look at something then try and find it cheaper on Amazon?
In the 90's there was a large amount of disdain for lower income people who were shopping at Wal-mart because they were buying cheap plastic goods from China. The reason they were is because companies were offshoring their jobs. They weren't buying from Wal-mart because they like the products, they were there because they were trying to keep the same lifestyle they had before they lost their higher paying jobs. Companies that did not offshore were driven out of business as their customer base collapsed. We cheated our future selves to keep our inflation targets.
> If we grow 3 times the amount of corn that we need this year, do we need to plan to grow 3.1 times next year? Or decrease the cost by 2%? If all the inputs stay the same, where do you get the gains from(assuming that the process is as efficient and automated as possible)?
I think I get what you're driving at, but let me ask this question. Do you believe the price of corn in 1976 reflects the same market forces as the price of corn in 2026? Not the inflationary number alone, but why that corn costs what it does today versus 50 years ago?
There are microeconomic changes for sure, different farming techniques and maybe a different way of buying and selling surplus corn. But the life of a farm hand has likely changed, the average background of them has likely changed, the ownership model of the farm may have changed. The downstream buyers of corn have likely changed from mostly canned good manufacturers to fresh produce providers. And the macroeconomic forces surrounding everything has absolutely changed.
My premise was that input costs are stable and as automated as possible.
We still expect a 1 to 2% increase YOY.
I am not sure how ownership structure cange would give you growth or reduce cost.
Downstream buyers shouldn't affect it much either as we started out producing 3 times as much as is used. Unless someone suddenly found a use for all the excess.
Let me try again with a different example. Let's say that I run a bottle water company, I have an automated production line and I bottle as much water as I am allowed to pump. I sell all my product so there is no waste, this also means that I have all the customers that I need. I would still be expected to show growth YoY. How? Reduce material used in bottles? At some point the bottles are as thin as possible.
My point is, there is a lower limit to how much you can reduce things or how much you can grow. Not everything is there, in fact most things are probably not. But in our strive to grow or become more efficient we are also throwing away the ability to be resilient.
By moving to lean JIT we shutdown when a shipment is delayed. But we had less cash tied up in inventory!
Now we are applying those same practices to hospitals.
You can't fit 1~2% more chickens in the same cage, nor can you feed them less. So where does it come from? Is it worth the growth to spray the chicken down with bleach? Ship it to China to be slaughtered and back? Take the entrails, centerfuge them into pink slime?
What is the stopping point? That is my question.
It also leads to those who have little bargaining power to become underpaid as they cannot negotiate higher salaries as inflation squeezes them.
Maybe you could win if you’re leveraged using fixed-rate, long-term loans and you’re also confident that you can sell something at a higher price. But that’s a rather specific financial maneuver.
> Seemed like a vicious cycle.
The issue is inflation and deflation both tend to be positive feedback loops. Inflation can promote behavior that promotes inflation. Deflation can promote behavior that promotes deflation.
Note that I use "tend to" and "can promote". It's all based of off assumptions on how people value things and their behaviors, as is all economic models.
> why prices HAVE to keep going up
It really doesn't have to. We do so because economic models show that we should because of the way we behave. But, we also behave the way we do because of the economic systems that we've designed.
Prices have to keep going up if you want a system that promotes endless consumption and growth in consumption.
It also lets you have a "non-zero-sum" economy, where it appears everyone is making a "profit". But, in reality it isn't.
There are other monetary schemes that allow for negative nominal rates (100% reserve-backed lending, a.k.a. The Chicago Plan, or the gold or silver standard, etc.), and in those one does not need steady inflation. There was basically no inflation for most of the 19th century, when most currencies were backed by gold or silver. That had other drawbacks: for example, a relative inability to control the money supply. An expanding money supply following the California gold rush helped fuel speculation during the railroad boom, and the inability to expand the money supply on demand exacerbated the ensuing panic of 1873. Governments at the time did not believe it was their job to dampen the impacts of the business cycle, however.
Spain was pretty poor in the 1600's inspite of new world gold and silver, because inflation made everything more expensive as supply of goods wasn't really increased, but money supply was.
in 2020, USA increased money supply by 20% of their all time supply. So inflation has to devalue the currency by at least that much to keep it balanced. Which is why they are distracting us with all the shit they are doing. and they are ignoring the real issue.
If they could get away with raising price just because they feel like it they would do it earlier and more often.
That’s $22 per person. Would like to see what they ordered. Not saying I don’t believe it but that’s pretty high. My family of 4 can eat chilfila for that and chikfila is kind of pricey for fast food where Popeyes is pretty much trash.
Granted, I don't eat at either because better value fried chicken than both is not terribly difficult to find.
The crazy high prices and general unhealthiness aside, my main beef (if you'll pardon the pun) with fast food places is that more and more of them are taking orders via AI and/or requiring you to download and install their app to place an order.
I'll say though that the customer experience at Chick-fil-a is top notch, and they really have drive through down to a science. Buying the food their has always been a pleasant experience.
The only way I can stomach buying fast food is through deals on their apps, which I find very anti-consumer and predatory.
It's also super annoying when you just want a quick and cheap meal but you need to spend an inordinate amount of time on their app to figure out how not to get taken advantage of by their pricing.
I don't know how fast food is still in business. Around ~$36 before tip and tax to feed my family of 3 Thai food & the local Teriyaki place or maybe ~$45 for Chinese, and I'm in a HCoL area. Fast food ends up even more than that.
Agree on the apps, I hate them and they are not only predatory but buggy pieces of junk.
As for Japan. ATM food is often cheaper. If you want cheap though, there are plenty of much cheaper places in the world. For rent, there are cheap options I wish existed in the states. As many point out tho, size is small. I'm happy to pay less for a smaller place but the price per square meter is comparable, maybe not to SF but at least to LA.
Note that like any city, there is a vast range from downtown to less popular parts of the city. "Tokyo" even includes mountains and farmlands on it's far west side
Businesses charge what they can get away with, and you're actively wasting money if you're referencing prices you actually paid for those meals recently.
The only way to stop it is to stop giving them money.
Just checked online.
8pc family meal of spicy white meat with large mash potatoes and gravy, one sweet tea, one purple lemonade, one chilled premium mango lemonade
=
$41.05
@ 1501 NW 20th St, Miami, FL 33142
Bring-your-own-liquids = $30.38
Either ordering at the counter is criminally expensive, or you were listening to someone who wanted to spend $68 at Popeye's in Florida so they could complain about spending $68 at Popeye's in Florida.
Feeding a family of four would need 2 of those 8 piece meals, so $60.
If that’s not enough, you order the larger portion, not double your quantity.
12pc family meal: $42.99 for 4-6 people (4992-6032 calories)
16pc family meal: $52.99 for 6-8 people (6766-8326 calories)
Have you folks seen a Popeyes family meal? They’re not tiny… eating that many calories in one sitting is not the best idea.
that's about $50 USD.
The 5pc chicken tenders regular combo (tenders, fries, biscuit, fountain drink) is $15.99.
Where did the other ~$20 USD come from?
Sandwich + Tenders + 2 Cole slaws + 2 bottled 500ml drink + one fries, as combos here in western Canada total up to $50 CAD for me on DoorDash...
If their last raise was 3-4 years ago, this is a simple inflation adjustment, amazing they get good vibe front page Hacker News credit for this.
Now, there's always discussion (you can guess who's arguing what if inflation is high and low...), but overall it seems to work pretty good.
Why don’t you cherry pick the compensation at 1 company, maybe nvidia or openai, and do the comparison.
I am astounded at some of the starting salaries, these days. Kids, right out of school, make more than I ever did, at the peak of my career.
And can't afford a house.
My father never made more than about $40K, but had a house in Potomac, two cars, and a stay-at-home wife.
Money ain't what it used to be.
I would imagine they're able to underpay due to the allure of working for Nintendo combined with a lack of actual positions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Software_Technology
They also make quite a few more changes than expected when localising games. Or at least they did in the olden days, where the American versions of games sometimes had different/extra features compared to the Japanese originals.
I think some of the localisation team are also regular voice actors for the games, on a worldwide basis.
Oh, interesting! The list of games isn't particularly impressive though, a lot of ports and remakes. Compare that to also-US-based Retro Studios, which isn't considered under Nintendo of America from what I understand.
It's not just localization and marketing they do have corporate IT and some development/studio as well as very poor security policies that gets them breeched every now and again which makes sense, they pay poorly and from my personal experience gatekeep but that makes sense from the applicants that probably get in their applicant pool.
I'm not saying either is right or wrong, it's just an observation.
The cost of living in the US is much higher compared to most other first world/rich countries for one. Count up someone's basic living expenses in the US and those in another country (so taxes, rent and fixed costs) and the US often ends up much higher in terms of absolute values. In other countries, taxes usually soak up more of those fixed costs, reducing them more across the board for most people. The US also has very little protection against surprise fees at checkout (to the annoyance of non-Americans when ordering stuff online from the US), so a lot of stores sell on higher markups relatively speaking, making the same goods more expensive in the US. There's also healthcare, which needs little elaboration because the US is to my knowledge the single most expensive country to live in when it comes to that.
That applies to the US as a whole; it's why someone can say they're making 300k USD a year, say they're apparently barely able to stay afloat and then the rest of the world pretty much regards the US economy as being fundamentally wrong in some form. In most places, 300k USD a year is living in the upper class (as in, "work this job for a decade and you can retire early" money), not scraping the bottom of the barrel. By modern conversion standards, that's about 263k euros, or about 21k euros each month.
Then there's the tech sector specific problems. San Francisco is expensive to live in, and most US tech companies are in SF. Take the US cost of living problem, amplify it specifically for the tech sector (which is usually not talked about, since it's hard to vocalize). Second is that the US tech sector has more creative ideas and money than business sense - throwing money at a problem like the purse doesn't exist is a very US tech thing that doesn't apply anywhere else. It means that it's possible to hire people at far more inflated prices than the job is realistically worth.
Whether a wage is good or bad is pretty much entirely dependent on the local economy. Someone making 2000 EUR a month in Europe makes just above/right below the poverty line. Someone making 2000 EUR a month in Brazil is living an upper class lifestyle. That's an extreme comparison, but is a good indicator.
My local Mercedes dealer will lease me a car for $4000/month (+ insurance) - somebody must have enough money to make that payment. If that is too much maybe the 18 year old Honda Civic with 300k miles for $1000 (cash price) is more your style? Probably you fit in between those. (note that we are talking about the US so we can assume there is no useful transit)
Anywhere outside of SV, really.
Where do you draw the line? Maybe everyone should be earning $10M/year like AI researchers, and anything to the contrary means it's "suppressed"?
You can own a house and support a family of 5 on a single income and retire at 65.
Where I live that is only really possible for SWE, lawyers, doctors, and execs.
There are many, many lists of the most affordable cities in the US. I see Buffalo, Dayton, and Wichita on them regularly as specific examples.
Whoops! Guess it isn't quite as easy as your smug comment made it out to be...
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/wichita-ks -> link for median single income data in Wichita
https://www.redfin.com/city/19878/KS/Wichita/housing-market -> link for median house sale price
https://www.chapman.edu/communication/_files/Demographia-Int... -> Link to Chapman study, income affordability ratio labeling is on page 6 of the study.
And don't rely on trashy websites for your snarky, invalid arguments: https://www.bls.gov/regions/mountain-plains/summary/blssumma...
No company is perfect, but Nintendo seems like an example some C-suites should follow.
edit: sorry downvoters, if you want to play with corporations you might want to remove the rapists from your ranks:
https://www.ssbwiki.com/2020_Super_Smash_Bros._sexual_miscon...
I think there are 3 rules to avoid getting the ninjas sent after you:
1) Don't try and make money 2) Don't do anything nintendo would realistically do 3) Don't touch mario. This one seems to be the most important. I see mario projects get killed all the time very early on in development, while am2r was allowed to exist until nintendo exercised rule number 2. I imagine the mother/earthbound fan works/translations will also be left alone if nintendo chooses to never touch that series again
(why some fan projects like Showdown are still up is anyone's guess)
Other people have speculated that TPC can't/won't axe Showdown because they know that VGC players rely on it heavily to test out team comps before official tournaments, and Champions doesn't seem like it fills the same niche, unless TPC is suddenly about to change their stance on genning :P
I regret buying caravan sandwitch because it's so hard to see with my aging eyes but it is nice to play it anywhere.
Always curious to hear what others enjoy about it to help me have less regret in my $600 investment in Mario kart
For my part, I use my Switch 2 as an upgraded Switch 1 for all but one game (a franchise I am fond of release a "Definitive Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Edition") and feel as if I got a good value (esp. considering the upcoming price increase).
Debating on getting the updated Sports Resort, and wishing that there were more motion-controlled games (esp. miss _Red Steel 2_)
I sold my switch sports a few months after getting it for this reason. We still play Wii sports (and resort) on the Wii-U.
The story is kind of meh, but the mechanics of the tennis matches is fun. Its not like I play Mario Tennis for a deep storyline campaign, its for playing a tennis game. Its a good multi-player game.
I also have to agree with Bananza. A fun story, good mechanics, and a silly art style and direction.
I'm eager to play Star Fox. It seems like an exceptionally good remake. Its been decades since I last played the original, I imagine it'll feel pretty new and yet familiar at the same time.
I still do have mostly Switch 1 games to play on it. I don't really mind that. The Switch 2 having pretty much full backwards compatibility is a strong feature to me and not really a con. Better hardware for sure, and some parts of my old Switch was getting worn out after so many years of use.
The DLC is really fun too, though whether it's worth buying is almost entirely dependent on how much you get into Emerald Rush. Personally I found that mode incredibly addictive for the longest time, though it's definitely not for everyone.
As a general rule though, the Switch 2's library is kinda niche right now though. What games/DLC are worth it heavily depends on your taste in games.
Cozy/sandbox game? Pokopia could be a good choice.
Fan of the Zelda series in general? The upgrades for BotW and TotK are nice, as is Age of Imprisonment.
Prefer Kirby? Air Riders and the Forgotten Land upgrade are a good bet. More of a Mario fan? Well, there aren't as many options there outside of Mario Kart, though the Wonder upgrade has been pretty well received, and Mario Tennis Fever is a decent game.
Generally you'll find one or two niche spinoffs you'll really get into, though nothing on the level of a big new 3D Mario/Zelda/Pokemon/whatever game.
I've poured tons of hours into Blue Prince, which is a great puzzle game. Pokopia is fun and charming if you like Pokemon or Minecraft. I've recently been playing Öoo which is a short but sweet "metroidbrania". I played through both Strange Horticulture and Strange Antiquities recently, and liked them both. I played the demo of "Adventure of Elliot: Millennium Tales", and liked the gameplay enough I'll probably pick up the full game, even though the dialog is atrocious. (The voice acting is good, at least).
My kids have also gotten a little older so the mainline Pokemon games have become a thing again, and we've been playing those together. Everything just seems to run better on the Switch 2.
The problem is you get paid in a roided up currency and it's a fun vacation for you. The locals get paid awful wages and a single night at an hotel for a typical person here is a whole month's rent for them.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/atlus-to-increase-sal...
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sega-is-raising-jap...
https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/03/06/capcom-salary-raise...
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/sonys-game-division-anno...
I wish there were more such successful "craftsman shops" out there than soulless "service providers" that today's video game companies are.
This is exactly why Nintendo games tend to have strong legacies. Everyone back then could see realistic graphics just on the horizon, but they weren't there yet. Nintendo knew that the play experience is the important thing, and made art and designs that work within the limitations. Luigi's Mansion, Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Pikmin all still look and feel so good.
I would expect raises were more like 1-2% under inflation and so they won't be due for a couple more years.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/149817/nintendo-ntdoy-pres...
That awkward pause in the comp update meeting when they tell you about the “increase” and seem to expect some positive reaction. LOL.
I am still working on minimum wage (as a DevOps).
There are basically only two ways to get a substantial raise at most employers, either move to a higher grade/title position, or move to another employer (probably at a higher grade).
Once you are in, large pay increases are rare, I'm sure there are exceptions but as a general rule the salary you negotiate coming in is where you get your pay raise. Hence the prior conventional wisdom that you need to change employers every few years to get your additional experience reflected in your salary.
Japan has a culture of loyalty/lifetime employment so not sure how much that happens there.
This hasn't been the case for at least a decade now, if not more.
First it was extended out to maybe once every 2 years, then more, and lately at every company I've worked at (primarily large companies) where pay was mentioned the response is "we pay at or above market rates - discuss with your manager."
Source? I think that's about 2-2.5x the figure that everyone else is using.
The BLS (and any economist) knows better than to do that, so you cited the online equivalent of "a dude wearing sunglasses on the back of his hat being interviewed in his pickup truck..."
the eshop is filled with huge amounts of slop they dont care about cleaning up, most of it with ai covers and lazy asset flip gameplay. permanent hardware bans that make buying a used switch 2 risky (you dont know if the previous user was a pirate). and they started the whole trend of $80 games by giving other publishers an excuse to charge more because nintendo does it too.
then you got insane demands for other devs like that time fortnite wanted zelda skins and even offered to make it exclusive (as in you can only buy or equip it on switch). nintendo said they would only do it if epic made the items invisible on all other platforms because they dont want their characters to be seen on xbox. its not a big deal for the rest of us but it shows how their execs really think.