@SuperBro64 . Japan's economy is certainly interesting. They are currently in a recession but their economic growth hasn't been booming for a long while prior.
The country has a small level of inflation. There's usually a cultural stigma on raising the prices of things (although hotel pricing is becoming an issue with tourists pricing out the domestic market). The average minimum wage is between 950-1100 Yen per hour, ($6-8 USD) so if prices did increase across the board drastically the economy would probably crash. Expanding upon the minimum wage point. If we imagine a young person working 38 hours a week. If they were to save all of what they earnt, before tax it would take them just about 2 weeks of full-time work to be able to afford a switch at the price of $450 USD. This would be quite prohibitive to the success of the console in the country unless most of the marketing was targeted towards parents buying the console for a kid, but even then families are currently feeling the burden of everyday expenses right now anyway. Subsidising the cost for the Japanese market makes sense if they want to sell to a large market of consumers, which is the Switch 1's market strategy - (the console for everyone). If it was too expensive, their available market to sell to would become too segmented and they would then be competing with Sony's PS5 - targeted towards a hardcore gamer that would have focused their savings into that console. For context, $450 USD is also getting quite close to the price of a very cheap secondhand Kei car over there ($750 USD)
It's also one of the few civilized countries where even though they have a weak dollar to the rest of the world comparatively, the cost of living is going up at a much, much slower rate than most other countries. (It is still an issue over there and that issue is mostly exacerbated by taxes - at least from my conversations with a few Japanese families). Just comparatively, their internal dollar (Yen), can still buy the basic goods for roughly the price they were 7-8 years ago. Unlike countries such as Australia where it's getting impossible to eat out as the average meal has jumped from $10-15 to $20-$35 in the last 5 years, and our wages haven't doubled, but it seems like the cost of everything has.
Bit of a long response but it's fun to procrastinate on my macro-economics assignment lol.
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Re: Nintendo Is (Kinda) Returning To Region-Locking With A Cheaper Japanese Switch 2
@SuperBro64 . Japan's economy is certainly interesting. They are currently in a recession but their economic growth hasn't been booming for a long while prior.
The country has a small level of inflation.
There's usually a cultural stigma on raising the prices of things (although hotel pricing is becoming an issue with tourists pricing out the domestic market).
The average minimum wage is between 950-1100 Yen per hour, ($6-8 USD) so if prices did increase across the board drastically the economy would probably crash.
Expanding upon the minimum wage point. If we imagine a young person working 38 hours a week. If they were to save all of what they earnt, before tax it would take them just about 2 weeks of full-time work to be able to afford a switch at the price of $450 USD. This would be quite prohibitive to the success of the console in the country unless most of the marketing was targeted towards parents buying the console for a kid, but even then families are currently feeling the burden of everyday expenses right now anyway.
Subsidising the cost for the Japanese market makes sense if they want to sell to a large market of consumers, which is the Switch 1's market strategy - (the console for everyone).
If it was too expensive, their available market to sell to would become too segmented and they would then be competing with Sony's PS5 - targeted towards a hardcore gamer that would have focused their savings into that console.
For context, $450 USD is also getting quite close to the price of a very cheap secondhand Kei car over there ($750 USD)
It's also one of the few civilized countries where even though they have a weak dollar to the rest of the world comparatively, the cost of living is going up at a much, much slower rate than most other countries. (It is still an issue over there and that issue is mostly exacerbated by taxes - at least from my conversations with a few Japanese families). Just comparatively, their internal dollar (Yen), can still buy the basic goods for roughly the price they were 7-8 years ago.
Unlike countries such as Australia where it's getting impossible to eat out as the average meal has jumped from $10-15 to $20-$35 in the last 5 years, and our wages haven't doubled, but it seems like the cost of everything has.
Bit of a long response but it's fun to procrastinate on my macro-economics assignment lol.