Topic: Updates on Vietnam #2

@SteveDaSteve @rallydefault @Overzeal Yeah, to me it sounds more like if Tariffs are around long-term, they'll raise prices. Although if Tariffs go away presumably they would remove the hike on accessory prices.

@FishyS People are making this sound as it's just Nintendo. People wakeup and smell the rotting garbage is going to get everyone and everything regardless because of the kids people put into Elections politics.

That's correct. When you put kids in charge, you get horrific ramifications that trickle all the way down.

These tariffs are going to drive up the cost of everything. Walmart and Target have already warned we are mere weeks away from shortages on shelves here.

And if you think the prices will retract once tariffs do, think again. With the orange monster in charge, he is so volatile and unpredictable that no responsible gaming company can reasonably plan around it. No company in any industry can.

Therefore, even if tariffs go away these prices are going to stay here and it'll be another Gen where consoles are actually going to be more expensive at the end of the generation than at the start. People have to start accepting we are in a new world. Actions have consequences. Incels wanted to rage against the machine that people weren't rolling out the red carpet for them, and society is now burning as a result.

@Quantumz00 Sad parts is even if they are gone we will have to live with the consequences of poor actions years and years to come as trust and faith has been broken.

Just apologies for the overtly political tone, but sadly this election had forced us to discuss the consequences of our choices since they are now directly responsible for whats going on right now in the game industry.

But...Years to come is the gentlest way of putting what has occurred. I've never been a reactionary, I've never thought one party being elected over another is the end of the world.

We are now past all that. We very well could be witnessing the start of the fall of the United States empire. No country ever made had ever existed forever. They all collapse eventually. Every generation thinks it will not happen to them. But knowing intimately how our civic institutions work, we are legit on the verge of total collapse right now. This process will take a while - America is a very wealthy and powerful nation - but it's already begun. The president regularly ignores Supreme Court verdicts now. This is a cornerstone of the checks-and-balance system, and it's already hopelessly broken.

Our dollar is daily being devalued against rival currencies due to tariffs and unpredictable fiscal policy. As our purchasing and borrowing power goes down and our lending rating goes down, interest rates go up. Harder to borrow to keep an old business afloat, harder to borrow to fet into new businesses.

We've lived in a very privileged world for so long, so the fact we are starting to have our "first world" benefits reduced in real time is shocking to many. But it's only going to get worse from here, as government ineptitude leads to various parts of our government simply ceasing to function. From here it only gets faster.

I say all these dark prognostications for one reason only, because so many people are still having these videogame discussions (as well as every other type of topic discussions) filtered through the prism of how the world used to work.

But it don't work like that no more, and the community collectively does need to have some level of understanding for the difficult position Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have been put in by the whims of one authoritarian. I'm not saying they are totally blameless in their anti consumer actions at times, but neither are they operating in a vacuum. They must react to how bad things are getting, capitalism demands it.

Japan has announced a hard date they intend to finish their trade deal.

Links???

@sethfranum

See the original post.

Every few days some news site comes out and says that the deals between the U.S. and Japan or Vietnam are ever closer and nearing completion.

I don’t see a point in posting these which is why I haven’t updated this in some time.

Vietnam has reached a deal with the U.S.

Details will be posted as they’re made available.

Woo! Got our second deal in 90 days! That’s just 88 off what we were promised! I can’t stand all the winning.

It is objectively, profoundly stupid that there's a valid reason the Nintendo Switch 2 forum has a "Updates on Vietnam" thread. Every time I see this I want to bang my head against a wall about this pointlessly stupid world we live in.

Japan made a deal with the U.S. and while tariffs were raised slightly Japan saw a huge boost to their economy.

Link in original post.

Some other updates on this idiocy tangential to this discussion and related to posts I've made along the way. Specifically relating to movements from the Australian side of this equation and from an Australian perspective. Because I know some Americans in particular are somehow oblivious to how this is playing out elsewhere

1. The other day Australia removed the biosecurity controls around beef imports. Specifically poking a hole in it for the US. Which I'm sure the beef industry here would love given our main selling point for our livestock exports is our biosecurity controls. The amusing thing is I don't think this will make much of a difference at all to trade given, you know, we're the biggest producers of beef per capita and second only to Argentina for Beef exports. But hey, congrats US, you "won" this battle. I look forward to my burgers being full of Mad Cow Disease

2. I said at one point in this thread that the main thing Trump is angry about here is the fact that the Australian government collectively bargains deals for pharmaceuticals. The PBS, effectively nationalised purchasing and subsidy of (select) pharmaceuticals. It's why stuff like insulin in Australia is free for Diabetics. Those big companies HATE this, because it's hard to price gouge an entire country. So my prediction was that Trump would use the threat of Tariffs to try and get more money for big pharma. Because he's really little more than a pawn for lobbyists. And guess what? This week he's spruiking "1000% cheaper medicine for the US" by "making Europe pay more". This stuff is SO predictable

3. So there's a military agreement the US signed with Australia and the UK a few years ago called AUKUS. The plan was we'd give the US a ****tonne of money and the US would build us some Nuclear Subs to be delivered well into the future. I'm not a huge fan of this deal, it's a bad deal from the Australian side. But these are the kinds of deals close allies tend to make. It was less about us buying submarines and more about investing in our military partners. That deal is still on but.... there's certainly less enthusiasm about giving the US a bucket of cash. I don't think our PM has even had a meeting with Trump yet, at all, and we seem to be spending a lot more time talking to Japan and European countries. And we're also starting to more freely speak out about Israel. Australia, the country who was a yes-man for every US conflict since WW2, disagreeing publicly. Crazy

..... don't get me wrong, I think this last one is a good thing for Australia. Especially as an ALP leaning West Australian, it has shades of John Curtin giving Churchill the middle finger about it. When we pivoted from our alliance to be more US centric after Churchill attempted to move our troops to "protect the Empire" at the cost of the defence of South East Asia. I'm a fan. Australia shouldn't just be a pawn in a bigger power's chess set. But man, how dumb of a move is it for the US here. Of course we were going to pivot to Europe and Asia if the US started pulling away, taxing our exports, attacking our institutions. What else did they think was going to happen?

I hope Switch 2 cartridges will continue to be made in Japan. I miss back in the days when game consoles(And most other electronics) were produced in Japan.

@Don

Agreed it gives the more control.

So whom makes the Switch and Switch 2 carts? Is it Samsung?????