The increased price is not the result of tariffs, neither for the games nor console. That’s pretty much confirmed by them costing the same amount (converted + sales tax) in Europe. The console is (was, before tariffs) fairly priced imo, it is comparable to the steam deck + dock.

Is 80$ Mario Kart price gouging? Eh. The edit maniac in the comments here is right that video games have become cheap, maybe even too cheap, and that a price increase at some point was inevitable. 60$ was set as the AAA price before the smartphone existed, and was not always profitable as we’ve seen with the recent lay-offs.

My own 2 cents: I’m glad some company broke that unspoken rule (we ignore skull and bones for obvious reasons), so big releases have more options in pricing, too long have we accepted 60$ games with 20$ DLC, I’m glad if this means devs can just charge 80$ for a full game. Oh, and it’s good for indie games too. People may actually buy the shorter games with worse graphics they wanted so badly a few months ago.

What, are we supposed to believe there is a parallel universe where Lego produced lime green slopes in the 1980s? Boy, I hope someone got fired for that blunder.

Since you both disagree on who has it worse, I conclude that ugly non-binary people do better then both and date whomever they want.

But Doctor, I am Pagliacci!

I also “liberated” a 32 inch TV out of Walmart the other day, which is now my assistant gunner when I boot up tf2.

You want it? It’s yours my friend, as long as you have enough rubies.