Japan gets an economic pass because they have such a strict monoculture.

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.

In Japan, inflation adjusted wages are down 2% over the last 20 years. In the same time frame in the US, they're up 20% and even for the bottom quartile, earnings are up 15%.

> but neither have rents or prices for common goods.

All the price increases over the last few years disagree.

For the longest time their strategy was to:

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.

Game devs in general underpay unless you're high up.

As a kid, I always wondered why prices HAVE to keep going up. Seemed like a vicious cycle.

I can't say I've ever been to Popeye's, but $68 for 3 people seems unlikely based on their online prices: I picked a random one in Orlando, Florida and the "family meal" (which appears to be a very large amount of chicken) is $20.

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.

How much does Nintendo of America really do? It's basically localization and marketing, right? And maybe outreach to third party developers?

I would imagine they're able to underpay due to the allure of working for Nintendo combined with a lack of actual positions.

US tech wages are insanely inflated compared to, well, everywhere.

Err does go far, right? Japan is pretty cheap in my experience.

Off topic: what are you enjoying lately? Most of the games I have bought work on switch 1 but the screen and controls on the switch 2 are better.

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

I'm not an economist, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can weigh in. But my understanding is that deflation is worse. If you can just stick $10k under your mattress and expect it to be worth 10% more in a year you have no incentive to invest. Businesses will just hold their cash, banks won't have money to loan out and the sort of investments that provide new jobs, goods and services are a risky high-effort bet compared to just saving.

I thought the same, too. Generally some small amount of inflation is preferable to encourage spending, rather than deflation which discourages it.

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, 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?

In the end it's really just greed. Companies always want to charge as much as they can get away with. They are constantly testing price increases to see how high they can get their prices before they start losing enough customers that it hurts their profits.

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 a vicious cycle if we get in an "inflationary spiral", but most of the time a small inflation is pretty healthy.

It's considered tech, adjacent to The Pokemon Company, also in the same area...

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 sure they've employed an army of lawyers for US IP law which isn't something easily reproducible in Japan.

I once watched a Vice President at an all hands explain that the company's decision to have non-competitive wages was because "it's not that we're underpaying, it's that everybody else is overpaying. If you want to go somewhere else to get overpaid, that's not going to last." I think about that every now and again and chuckle.

I mean... You are looking at a place that is about 250 square feet? There isn't an appetite for offering units that small in the US.

A capitalist society needs inflation in order to produce a desirable outcome. It is a driver of consumption, as opposed to people and organizations hoarding their money in a deflationary environment, as well as investments, because inflation leads to the devaluation of loans over time.

My general assumption for any food I'm getting eating out in the US (across a range of regions) is $20/person for fast food/casual, and $30 if it's a basic restaurant. The food will be listed at $7-12 etc, but the receipt will show twice that due to fees, add-ons etc.

IMO what matters is what you pay; the numbers they post on the menus and other media aren't useful.

Did you include tax?

Also, that meal doesn’t include drinks. Poppies is significantly cheaper if you’re taking it home and supplementing with your own drinks.

If they’re bigger folks or starving and someone doesn’t want bone-in chicken, I could see it. 3 large 4 piece combos is $55.50 in Miami, and I think there are other things in that range (eg a 5 pc tender meal if someone hates bone-in chicken so they can’t get a family meal).

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.

They do have at least one development studio there, Nintendo Software Technology:

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.

US tech wages are what everyone should be making. Tech looks high compared to everyone else, but it is more that everyone else's wages got suppressed.

I don’t agree at all — plenty of college students, 20-30s somethings would love a space like this in NYC, SF, etc. at a lower price point than what’s currently available.

The limits seem to be from legal restrictions on minimum apartment size, not market demand.

This is the gospel that is taught. It seems to help people tolerate the fruits of their labor being quietly separated from them over time. Just another tax, except the people have even less of a say in this one.

Population growth is ending globally, so I suppose the strategy is to issue debt for clean tech, affordable housing, and similar at the lowest yield for the longest duration you can and let those loans devalue over time as the population declines. China is the closest model I can put forth in this regard: their property sector is imploding for investors, but housing is affordable, for example.

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

Florida sales tax is around 8%. Drinks are $2-3.

Why would you tip at Popeye's? It's fast food.

> They do have at least one development studio there, Nintendo Software Technology.

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.

This is largely a function of exchange rates. If you are paid in USD, then Japan will seem cheap in a way it does not for people paid in yen.

Vietnam is even cheaper.

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.

Living there with local wages and taxes?

My British parents went there this year and found it very expensive

Not if you don't get paid very much?

DK Bananza is wonderful, a masterpiece. Pokémon Pokopia is also really fun as a recurring game you come back to every day or every couple of days to relax and build your village. I'm also enjoying Switch 1 games on it. Pokémon Violet, for example, lagged hard on Switch 1 but runs great on Switch 2.

Unless you've played it elsewhere, I'd highly recommend person 3 reload

Caves of Qud.

I'm happy Mario Tennis is back with the ability to play actual full tennis matches again. I skipped the last one.

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.

> Off topic: what are you enjoying lately?

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).

This is from their online checkout, so it is what you'd pay.

(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.)

Yes, but that meal is for 6-8 people. I don't think you can get to $68 for half as many people, even with drinks and tax.

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.)

>Tech looks high compared to everyone else, but it is more that everyone else's wages got suppressed.

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"?

I hate this crab in a bucket framing. It's so anti-working person. Why isn't it that wages are insanely deflated compared to the US?

Pokemon Pokopia has been a surprise hit in our house, I have two kids, but I got into it and spent a ton of time making a perfect little Pokemon village. My kids really enjoy Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. It's really silly but they make all their friends and have them get married and read the news and it's just peak Nintendo goofiness.

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.

What sort of games do you enjoy playing?

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_)

Donkey Kong Bananza is probably my Switch 2 game of choice. Like it may not be marketed as such, but it's probably somewhere on par with Super Mario Odyssey in terms of game design and mechanics, and has the craziest ending sequence I've ever seen in a video game. It is a really solid 3D platformer, and does to Donkey Kong what Super Mario 64 did to Super Mario Bros/World.

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 am afraid MK World isn't even the best kart racer on NS2. It's Sonic Crossworlds

Hey - I tried this just now, and was surprised; you're right; it was ~$12.

Fine by me. Let's give it a shot.

I'm pretty sure they meant ~100k-200k in a housing market away from the coasts... oh wait that's already true!

> I don't think you can get to $68 for half as many people, even with drinks and tax.

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.

Depends on the family.

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.

I can probably eat an 18” pizza alone, but you would rightly accuse me of misrepresentation for claiming that a “pizza for lunch for one” costs me $25+.

Sure, it’s not impossible to reach. But I think you’ve demonstrated that you need to work to reach it. Particularly in a family context; I don’t eat at Popeye’s but even I know that the whole point of the family menu is that it’s meant to be economical for family meals.

> anywhere in the world

Anywhere outside of SV, really.

I rather enjoyed Wii Sports Resort (mostly the flying and archery) --- so long as those are well-implemented, I'll be fine.

Ordering a main, a side, and a drink isn't really "working to reach it". Your original post was insinuating that the OP or their friend lied about the cost and I was just demonstrating that it's quite plausible to reach it.

The other studios’ investors are winning just fine. That’s all that matters to them.

I still can't afford a house. So I built one. It was cheap as hell even post covid, I think it took about $60k. I did not submit building plans, I did not get it code inspected, and I did not have any trades licenses. There is an actually "professional" built house next to me, following the gazillion licensing laws and planning nonsense, it is much older, run down, and barely larger but cost 5x the price.

The reason why you can't have a house isn't that you don't make enough to build one, it's that the people you elected tricked you into thinking "muh codes, zones, and environmental review" brought you safety rather than serfdom.

========= replies here due to post throttling ==========

>It’s true that you don’t need much expertise to build the house but electric and plumbing does need some, no? You don’t need to sell the property perhaps but how did you get labor? Surely you didn’t just do it all yourself.

No I literally did all of it including the electrical extension to the pole.

>Not sure where you live, but in my area -even if it's a great house- it would not end well.

I exploited a rarely used "loophole" since there was no "commercial" business on the house and it was fully DIY, and got it legalized through the county. Since there was no commerce it didn't interact with and trigger most of the regulations that were only legitimized on the basis they were regulating commercial activity. I have this explicitly stated on my permits that established the legal occupation of the house.

>So what you are saying is that you build a cheap house by breaking the laws and local regulations? Next logical step would be to just barge in the neighborhood house and live there for free.

I did not break the law. I exploited a loophole. My county issued me a closed permit explicitly acknowledging I did not break the law and that my house was legalized. To trigger building inspections in my county it can only be forced if there is compensation or commercial intent for building or use of the house, but you have to use a special process to record this with the county affirming you're the owner and the builder and it's a non-commercial non-rented domicile.

This is putting Nintendo on a pedestal. Major Japanese studios in general are consistently publishing great games and increasing hiring count / raising salaries. Switch 2 is also essentially just a spec bump from switch 1 which came out in 2017.

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...

this is a puff piece. the raise was in April 2023

I don't think it's unfair to say that Nintendo has some of the highest quality games on average, and probably the biggest cache of top tier IP of any studio on earth. The only studio that rivaled them was Blizzard IMO, and that got corrupted and has fallen to capitalism.

The story seems mixed; you are correct that the specifically 10% raise was back in 2023, but they also implemented additional raises in April of 2026, though not the specific 10% that was tweeted/widely reported.

When I was a kid this Japanese guy from Nintendo used to live next to us. He gave me the Nintendo DS before its official release for my birthday. It was pretty cool.

2023 was 3 years ago, so if raises were 3% under inflation they are due for another 10% increase again.

I would expect raises were more like 1-2% under inflation and so they won't be due for a couple more years.

So what you are saying is that you build a cheap house by breaking the laws and local regulations? Next logical step would be to just barge in the neighborhood house and live there for free.

> To trigger building inspections in my county it can only be forced if there is compensation or commercial intent for building or use of the house, but you have to use a special process to record this with the county affirming you're the owner and the builder and it's a non-commercial non-rented domicile.

The question I have about this is whether you would need to get inspections and permitting done if you ever tried to sell the house?

If that's the case the loophole only works for the owner/builder and the next person to own it is going to have to scrape it clean and rebuild entirely. If you ever wanted or needed to sell it sounds like this would complicate that process by quite a bit either way.

I’m sorry but this comment is hysterical. I have experience with construction and engineering and I shudder to think what type of monstrosity you’ve built.

It’s true that you don’t need much expertise to build the house but electric and plumbing does need some, no? You don’t need to sell the property perhaps but how did you get labor? Surely you didn’t just do it all yourself.

I have to say, pretty cool all told if you managed this!

Its not even like they indiscriminately shut down fan projects either. Just the ones that try to make money. You still have sites like Pokemon Showdown and Advance Wars By Web that have been running for several decades without incident.

Yeah without context this could be good or bad.

100k for entry level roles at one of the most recognizable brands of the world doesn’t seem too bad to me. Then again, I’ve never been to the Seattle/Washington area.

160-250k jobs? I think no action would satisfy you.

Doubt I'll ever sell the house. I might gift it to an LLC and then sell the LLC though. Or just bulldoze it when I'm done with it, it has already paid for itself and I never built it with an intent to profit off of it.

Some research seems to point to TN allowing for this if the county has chosen to do so https://support.commerce.tn.gov/hc/en-us/articles/208924888-...

That’s a pretty cool rule! I think it’s actually super awesome that this dude did this.

You need some expertise, but electric and pumbing are not hard to do yourself. If you don't know what you are doing a bad install can kill you (or your family/friends), so you want to do this right. However it isn't hard.

I helped my uncle build his house, the only thing he didn't do himself was dig the holes (foundation and well), pour the concrete, and tape the drywall. Everything was inspected by the county and passed. We could have done those as well, but is made sense to hire someone for those parts considering the experience/tools of family/friends, and how long it would take working only Saturdays.

I miss living where I have lots of family around. There are things I'm forced to hire out that I know how to do just because I can't make a few phone calls and get a dozen people to help next Saturday.

We should all appreciate that most homes were not done by teams of professionals back in the day. Multiple things can be true here, 1) building your own home will take a lot of time to get right (so time being used in place of money), 2) the skills involved are all completely learnable and do-able for an able-bodied person who again is willing to put the time in, and 3) its not worth it for the vast majority of people who don't want to learn these skills and would rather focus on their own work and pay someone else to be a professional in the space. And yes 4) I've seen quite a bit of DIY work in homes and sometimes its impressive but usually its questionable and sometimes even horrific.

Anybody remember Groverhaus?

My friends and I made a game for Ludum Dare 36 called No Mario's Sky years ago and received a DMCA take down notice. We weren't selling it, but we still had to remove it. Maybe because Mario is 100% a Nintendo property but Pokemon and Advance Wars are co-owned with other companies.

Like the other guy said, electrical and plumbing are not hard to do correctly with a just a little bit of knowledge or experience with modern building practices.

You can't just throw random trash together but there are simple "standard" ways of doing things with standard available wires and pipes and fittings and as long as you follow common practices you will be 95% of the way to a code compliant install. It is only when you want to do something in an unusual or shortcut way that you may run into real compliance problems.

Certainly don't try it if you are completely clueless, but reading a diy book or watching some diy instructional videos will get you pretty far and show you how standardized most residential construction is with hardware store materials.

That’s not historically uncommon though. Like the house I grew up in was a rural house built in ~1890 by the brothers who farmed the land. Of course it had the usual quirks of an old house, but it was well maintained over time and I wouldn’t view it as any kind of “monstrosity”.

My grandpa built a similar house under similar level of scrutiny roughly at the same point in life as I did, it was still standing and in good order when he died. At this point it's basically already paid for itself vs rent even valued at $0.

That's just not true. Off the top of my head: SMBX, Pokemon Uranium, Ocarina of Time 2D, AM2R. A few years back they mass DMCA'd hundreds of fan games on the site GameJolt, none of which were monetized.

(why some fan projects like Showdown are still up is anyone's guess)

they indiscriminately shut down any sight of online smash tournaments

AM2R for example was distributed for free and DMCA-ed.

Not sure where you live, but in my area -even if it's a great house- it would not end well.

We have some pretty heavy-duty local township bureaucrats.

I'm guessing it didn't have wiring or plumbing when it was originally built, though. If professional electricians/plumbers added those _after_ the fact, then that's still way different than trying to DIY everything in the 21st century.

Probably for the best seeing how many literal degenerates and sex pests there are in the scene, what with Nintendo being a family company and all.

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...

IIRC Showdown has a tacit agreement with TPC (or at least has historically; unclear if Champions will change anything in the future) and is allowed to exist so long as it follows certain rules. I can't find it right now, but I swear I read a comment from Zarel, the creator of Showdown, explaining what some of those rules entail, including an agreement not to include any moves or mons that haven't been officially released in the mainline games yet.

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 think they killed it because they were planning on showing off their own remake

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

I feel like a toxic part of this cycle is that a successful fan project has the potential to actually inspire Nintendo to attempt to do the same thing, leading to #2 as a punishment for success.

I agree, though 2 seems pretty tricky to navigate/predict. For example I wouldn't have guessed Advanced Wars would get a new release after Days of Ruin, or with Earthbound I could maybe see Mother 3 finally getting a US release with how popular Undertale/Deltarune has been. Maybe the best option is to be as under the radar as possible until it's done and out.

I can almost guarantee mother 3 will never get an official translation. At most, I can see them giving the existing fan translation their official endorsement and releasing the patched version on switch online or something. The only reason earthbound beginnings got published eventually was because they had already translated it and planned to release it in the west but never ended up doing so