Why are things so expensive?
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This is because you don't live where I live, in my currency it is almost USD100 more expensive without considering the taxes.
Supply/demand means things are more expensive where they are harder to find.
Do you have the option to buy one from US and import?
Don’t know people and media are blaming Covid and war with Russia all that ends what will they blame it on next no one go to news media prices go up never go down
yeah, these things are the main culprit to blame for any price(s) increase in any products, even food, electricty everything almost, lol.
heck the ps5 was at 500 euros+ (disk ver) but now with sony's dump price increase almost everywhere (except US for somereason? the US $ is way stronger than the Euro/pound etc).
now a ps5 has gone to the Prices of god tier levels, that and gl finding an avalbe one to buy.
i hope switch games prices stay the same and don't go up above the 60$/euro mark range.
A lot of people will tell you that things are vastly over priced, because the cost of components and manufacturing isn’t always anywhere near what a product costs to purchase.
But you have to remember the years of research and development, the hundreds, and often many, many thousands of employees who need to be paid every month, the cost of advertising, rent and rates for offices, taxes, freight costs, and everything else that’s boring and mundane, but absolutely essential to keeping a business running.
Sure, there’s often millions/billions of dollars in revenue and profit, but that’s the purpose of a business, they’re not in it to supply us with a stream of new toys to keep us happy, keeping a customer happy is a byproduct of generating revenue, which is their primary purpose.
But you have to remember the years of research and development, the hundreds, and often many, many thousands of employees who need to be paid every month, the cost of advertising, rent and rates for offices, taxes, freight costs, and everything else that’s boring and mundane, but absolutely essential to keeping a business running.
Sure, there’s often millions/billions of dollars in revenue and profit, but that’s the purpose of a business, they’re not in it to supply us with a stream of new toys to keep us happy, keeping a customer happy is a byproduct of generating revenue, which is their primary purpose.
1 Nintendo doesn’t make all their components in-house. They buy, for example, the internal storage for the console, same for everything else that isn’t directly made by them
2 lots of stuff of “years of research” is open-source
3 many employees are hired through “middlemen” agencies to cut on taxes and wages
4 consoles aren’t assembled in offices, but in factories, mostly non-Nintendo
5 most shippings have fixed rates for big companies because they’re the most loyal customers
6 Companies like Nintendo are valued in public stocks and have a duty to guarantee a constant growth to keep the investors happy, which are the ones that gain the most
7 OP is from Nigeria. In Africa, Nintendo is only officially established in South Africa, meaning that, in countries like Nigeria, OP has to pay for import taxes, VAT, the middlemen who have to pay upfront and risk keeping them in shelves
8 stop simping for companies when you know nothing about how economics work
@NinStar in your case, it’s because Brazil imposes high taxes to imported goods. Companies like Nintendo need to establish a factory there to avoid those (and Sony is doing it for their own console)
I love this, really I do, it's one of the best posts I've read this week. Having said that, you're either overlooking a few things, or just don't know they exist. So, as someone with many years of product development under their belt, let's do a quick rundown.
1. Obviously Nintendo (and for that matter, the majority of companies) don't make all of their components in-house. Nobody expects them to manufacture every IC, resistor, capacitor, diode, and every other component, that's just wildly unrealistic. But they do, as you even said yourself, have to BUY them. While the cost of some components is minuscule on a device basis, take for example something that might even cost $0.01 per device, you have to multiply that by the quantity of them used in each device, then multiply that by 144,000,000 to get to the raw component cost in the case of the Switch, for example.
2. This is absolutely my favourite, "lots of stuff of “years of research” is open-source". I mean seriously, I don't even know where to begin with this one. Do you think everything that's ever designed is open-source? Are you sure you know the difference between proprietary and open-source?
When Nintendo started developing the Switch, they what? had a meeting and said, we want detachable controllers, with motion sensors, IR, NFC, HD-Rumble, and each one should be able to be used as an individual controller. Bill, do a google search and find an open-source one of those for us will you. No, of course they didn't. The hardware has to be designed, the motherboards inside have to be designed, even when it's not a Nintendo thing, take the Nvidia chipset for example, it still had to be designed, albeit in that case by Nvidia. R&D isn't what you must think it is, it's every single aspect of a product inside-out.
In 2021 Nintendo spent in excess of $800 million on R&D, oddly enough, none of that was for open-source projects.
3. Yes, as with a lot of the worlds biggest companies, a good portion of the workforce is made up of temporary, and agency workers to help keep the salary cost down. However, Nintendo has almost 7,000 of their own employees who aren't agency, or temporary workers. Every single one of those people wants a wage every single month of the year, the ungrateful sods, surely you'd work for free if you got the chance to work somewhere like Nintendo.
4. Of course consoles aren't assembled in offices, no-one claimed they were, they are however designed, marketed and supported (among other things) by teams of people in offices. It's generally considered bad form to have your employees do their work out on the sidewalk. Oh, and the factories where they are assembled, brace yourself, this might come as something of a shock, but none of that is done for free either.
5. Indeed, a company such as Nintendo will have negotiated flat-rate haulage for their products, but even then, large scale, worldwide logistics doesn't come as cheap as you might think when you're moving hundreds upon hundreds of millions of products. (bear in mind it's not just consoles, but controllers, Amiibo and everything else Nintendo makes that fall into that category).
6. You're not wrong, and it's not just Nintendo. Outside of charities, charitable foundations and the like (though even then, not all of those), businesses exist to make money. I know, it's a shock. But even the most altruistic of companies cannot survive without generating revenue. But there's a reason why a company manages, for example, $700 million in operating profit from sales in excess of $2.5 billion. The vast majority of it has gone to keeping the company running and investing in R&D so you have a shiny new toy to play with every few years.
7. I really feel for the OP, and anyone who's in a country where the cost of a product is unrealistically, artificially inflated. Personally I think it's outrageous when a product costs twice (or more) what it really should cost, when compared to the rest of the world. I have bought and shipped many different devices to lots of different people, for a lot of years now, with no cost beyond the product and shipping fees, for just that reason. But even that's not realistic for a lot of people, unless they have a prior relationship with the person who's buying and shipping the product, it's a heck of a lot of trust to put in someone.
8. It really did amuse me that you accuse me of not knowing how economics work, when you would appear to have no grasp of how they actually do work in the real world. Some of us have decades of experience in these things, there's no simping involved, just years of experience on the other side of the fence.
In the UK a Switch is about £280 (or 138,480.32 Naira).
Looking around, apparently it costs 200,000:
https://www.vgstores.ng/product/nintendo-switch/
Although I'm not sure on taxes.
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That is a bit steep for a Nintendo Switch. It seems to be just under the average monthly salary in Nigeria. My advice is to save what little bit you can afford to save. This is how I managed to get my PC rig, which was over my monthly salary at the time that I purchased the components. Creating a monthly budget would also be a great help in developing and implementing a savings plan. I have no idea what the markets are like in Nigeria, but, in the USA, used electronics are an option that are a bit more feasible for lower budgets.
That's way too much for a 5 year old gaming console (or handheld, or whatever you wanna call it). I bet Nintendo will give it one more year and then release its successor.
Nintendo may have Mario Kart 9 somewhat ready, but it'll be released on the next Switch and chances are BotW2 will be better on it than on the first Switch.
A Nintendo console without its own Mario Kart game. I mean, MK8D is an amazing package though that's really just the Wii U game with new content and improvements.
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Whatever happened to that? I got so excited with that technology as it felt great and then Nintendo just sorta let it die(?).
1-2 Switch showed the potential that HD Rumble had.
Still crazy if it cost 300000 Naira to get a switch, 300000 Naira is about $687 USD.
Man, trust me, here in Mexico things are gnarly. I am a teacher and every 15 days my salary is about 200 dollars. I studied hard, worked hard to get that job and guess what, it is about 60 % more money than every other non formal job out here. 
I have to work another things every day in my spare time and with my wife buy / sell / trade to survive. It is really, really awful and surreal the way of living here. I have wanted to leave the country years ago but oh yeah, the money don't even give us a healthy lifestyle. I really want to evolve, but the same lifestyle sucks you up and keeps you tied... There is no chance to grow here if you don't have a powerful friend or go to the criminal world. It just sucks.
Do you want to know something even creepier? One block from where I live, there is a car parts industry. The workers go from monday to saturday, 8 hours, and the weekly pay is... get ready... 35 dollars the week. I was really blown up when I learned this.
In this country, there are good people, with good knowledge and the will to help and live happily, but the ignorance, criminal world and extremely low lifestyle has taken over DECADES ago. So, there are more bad / conformist people that don't give a damn if their lives go away and they just work their asses off and get the very enough to buy a meal per day. It is really sad and terrible.
Trust me, it is worse than you think.
I have to work another things every day in my spare time and with my wife buy / sell / trade to survive. It is really, really awful and surreal the way of living here. I have wanted to leave the country years ago but oh yeah, the money don't even give us a healthy lifestyle. I really want to evolve, but the same lifestyle sucks you up and keeps you tied... There is no chance to grow here if you don't have a powerful friend or go to the criminal world. It just sucks.
Do you want to know something even creepier? One block from where I live, there is a car parts industry. The workers go from monday to saturday, 8 hours, and the weekly pay is... get ready... 35 dollars the week. I was really blown up when I learned this.
In this country, there are good people, with good knowledge and the will to help and live happily, but the ignorance, criminal world and extremely low lifestyle has taken over DECADES ago. So, there are more bad / conformist people that don't give a damn if their lives go away and they just work their asses off and get the very enough to buy a meal per day. It is really sad and terrible.
Trust me, it is worse than you think.
