The country for better or worse seems to be frozen in time - salaries have not caught up with the heady levels of SV (or even Europe) but neither have rents or prices for common goods.
This is not a judgment either way - but it does make Japanese exports a significantly more lucrative business - if only they could figure out how to sell more of their stuff abroad!
Anon1096 1 hours ago [-]
> In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents
No, there really isn't. You're looking at one company that "apologized" as a marketing play but outside of that prices have been increasing with no fanfare for years now. The annual inflation rate has been 2-3% for the past 4 years. It's a lot less interesting to write a news article about that though.
Comparing prices between Japan and Europe or US is strongly skewed by the weak yen.
The fact that the JPY has lost a lot of value compared to the US dollar has nothing to do with how prices or salaries in Japan evolve.
keiferski 8 minutes ago [-]
I watch one of those “apartments for rent in Japan” channels and I’m consistently shocked how inexpensive apartments are in lower tier cities / not Tokyo. Like a studio in an inconvenient part of Fukuoka for $200-250 a month.
I guess the salaries are lower, but it’s hard to imagine such cheap rent in the equivalent American city.
WarmWash 18 minutes ago [-]
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.
akerl_ 6 minutes ago [-]
> I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.
Does it?
woodruffw 48 minutes ago [-]
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.
the__alchemist 30 minutes ago [-]
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.
woodruffw 24 minutes ago [-]
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.)
physicalecon 10 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Retric 45 minutes ago [-]
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.
woodruffw 27 minutes ago [-]
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.)
1123581321 37 minutes ago [-]
Florida sales tax is around 8%. Drinks are $2-3.
isakmarr 40 minutes ago [-]
> In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents
That can't be true. So inflation just doesn't exist in Japan?
rjh29 40 minutes ago [-]
Historically, no. Prices were basically flat for a long time until covid.
chrischen 34 minutes ago [-]
They've also been making things smaller. Some would argue that it's a cultural thing, but being poor also means you have to start adopting austere cultural habits as a coping mechanism.
ForHackernews 36 minutes ago [-]
Population is flat or declining so that's one of the main drivers of inflation. Japan could be a pioneer in steady-state economics.
nxm 11 minutes ago [-]
Over the long run, population decline it is associated with disinflation or deflation. Deflationary forces often become strong because overall demand and economic growth slow.
missedthecue 1 hours ago [-]
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%.
47 minutes ago [-]
pavlov 31 minutes ago [-]
Japan had decades of deflation after 1990. There’s a generation of people who got used to prices staying flat or going down.
bilkow 12 minutes ago [-]
Note that the snack price was increased "from 12 yen ($0.08) to 15 yen ($0.10)". That's a 25% increase.
dartharva 11 minutes ago [-]
Popeye's for 3 costs ~$10 in India unless you're trying to make a full-course meal out of it.
weikju 1 hours ago [-]
> but neither have rents or prices for common goods.
All the price increases over the last few years disagree.
ChrisMarshallNY 24 minutes ago [-]
That's very cool. They don't say whether or not it's retroactive, though (I'll bet not).
I am astounded at some of the starting salaries, these days. Kids, right out of school, make more than I ever did, at the peak of my career.
And can't afford a house.
My father never made more than about $40K, but had a house in Potomac, two cars, and a stay-at-home wife.
Money ain't what it used to be.
mothballed 22 minutes ago [-]
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.
arjie 3 minutes ago [-]
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!
3pt14159 7 minutes ago [-]
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.
mothballed 5 minutes ago [-]
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.
ChrisMarshallNY 4 minutes ago [-]
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.
rootsudo 2 hours ago [-]
This does not apply to Nintendo of America, which famously does underpay in the Redmond, WA area and well.. I hear has trouble truly attracting talent in the first place.
Wowfunhappy 1 hours ago [-]
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.
CM30 1 hours ago [-]
They do have at least one development studio there, 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.
Wowfunhappy 44 minutes ago [-]
> 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.
mothballed 1 hours ago [-]
I'm sure they've employed an army of lawyers for US IP law which isn't something easily reproducible in Japan.
Bluescreenbuddy 1 hours ago [-]
Game devs in general underpay unless you're high up.
dismalaf 57 minutes ago [-]
US tech wages are insanely inflated compared to, well, everywhere.
9 minutes ago [-]
genxy 17 minutes ago [-]
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.
gruez 2 minutes ago [-]
>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"?
snapcaster 39 minutes ago [-]
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?
t-3 5 minutes ago [-]
People can achieve a high standard of living anywhere in the world on half or a quarter of what goes for normal in SV tech. The valuations of these companies are even more inflated than their wages, and most of them aren't even profitable and don't have good prospects. Bubbles benefit some people, but they're a sign of dysfunction and I don't believe that the proper reaction to a sign of deep societal dysfunction is to celebrate that a few thousands of people can make a lot of money out of it.
noirscape 12 minutes ago [-]
Because the conversation is incomplete if we're talking internationally.
The cost of living in the US is much higher compared to most other first world/rich countries for one. Count up someone's basic living expenses in the US and those in another country (so taxes, rent and fixed costs) and the US often ends up much higher in terms of absolute values. In other countries, taxes usually soak up more of those fixed costs, reducing them more across the board for most people. The US also has very little protection against surprise fees at checkout (to the annoyance of non-Americans when ordering stuff online from the US), so a lot of stores sell on higher markups relatively speaking, making the same goods more expensive in the US. There's also healthcare, which needs little elaboration because the US is to my knowledge the single most expensive country to live in when it comes to that.
That applies to the US as a whole; it's why someone can say they're making 300k USD a year, say they're apparently barely able to stay afloat and then the rest of the world pretty much regards the US economy as being fundamentally wrong in some form. In most places, 300k USD a year is living in the upper class (as in, "work this job for a decade and you can retire early" money), not scraping the bottom of the barrel. By modern conversion standards, that's about 263k euros, or about 21k euros each month.
Then there's the tech sector specific problems. San Francisco is expensive to live in, and most US tech companies are in SF. Take the US cost of living problem, amplify it specifically for the tech sector (which is usually not talked about, since it's hard to vocalize). Second is that the US tech sector has more creative ideas and money than business sense - throwing money at a problem like the purse doesn't exist is a very US tech thing that doesn't apply anywhere else. It means that it's possible to hire people at far more inflated prices than the job is realistically worth.
Whether a wage is good or bad is pretty much entirely dependent on the local economy. Someone making 2000 EUR a month in Europe makes just above/right below the poverty line. Someone making 2000 EUR a month in Brazil is living an upper class lifestyle. That's an extreme comparison, but is a good indicator.
16 minutes ago [-]
dismalaf 22 minutes ago [-]
The rest of the world has educated people willing to work for less. Wages are just supply/demand.
I'm not saying either is right or wrong, it's just an observation.
drstewart 21 minutes ago [-]
He told you why: because it's in America. You can bet if Europe paid those wages and the US didn't we'd be hearing about wage suppression and underpayment instead.
cautiouscat 53 minutes ago [-]
Nintendo gets a lot of flak for how they treat consumers and how litigious they are. However I get the impression they treat their employees very well in Japan. Like when the Wii U flopped, execs took a pay cut to avoid layoffs.
No company is perfect, but Nintendo seems like an example some C-suites should follow.
weberer 50 minutes ago [-]
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.
bananaboy 35 minutes ago [-]
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.
kipchak 10 minutes ago [-]
AM2R for example was distributed for free and DMCA-ed.
SSLy 46 minutes ago [-]
they indiscriminately shut down any sight of online smash tournaments
shimman 41 minutes ago [-]
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:
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.
oceanhaiyang 2 hours ago [-]
For someone in Japan this is shockingly high! Money doesn’t go far here at all
seandoe 2 hours ago [-]
Err does go far, right? Japan is pretty cheap in my experience.
collinmcnulty 2 hours ago [-]
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.
kdheiwns 2 hours ago [-]
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.
not_a_bot_4sho 2 hours ago [-]
Living there with local wages and taxes?
arkon_hn 2 hours ago [-]
Not if you don't get paid very much?
hootz 2 hours ago [-]
Always a great thing to hear. Well paid employees, good results, and I'm definitely loving their Switch 2 releases already.
leetrout 2 hours ago [-]
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
wincy 44 minutes ago [-]
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.
waltbosz 8 minutes ago [-]
Tomodachi Life is so much fun. It's the first time I've seen 1990s voice synthesizer tech used in a fun way. And the item designer makes me nostalgic for Mario Paint.
leetrout 36 minutes ago [-]
My kid just discovered tomodachi life from a friend and I'm actually going to buy it for her on my switch 1 and give it to her. We've got a summer trip in a few weeks and she will be surprised to receive the game and the system to be all hers.
mghackerlady 22 minutes ago [-]
the Tomodachi series is really just amazing. I'm not the biggest fan of living the dream (I prefer life on the 3DSs gameplay and think collection on the DS is very interesting), but it's still amazing
hootz 2 hours ago [-]
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.
WillAdams 2 hours ago [-]
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_)
supermatt 1 hours ago [-]
I was so disappointed with Switch Sports. It lacked the soul of Wii Sports. Sadly, it seems like Sports Resort is going to be more of the same :(
WillAdams 44 minutes ago [-]
I rather enjoyed Wii Sports Resort (mostly the flying and archery) --- so long as those are well-implemented, I'll be fine.
CM30 1 hours ago [-]
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.
kevin_thibedeau 6 minutes ago [-]
Galaxy 1&2 have visual upgrades.
StilesCrisis 26 minutes ago [-]
DKB was created by the Odyssey team so it makes sense that it scratches the same itch!
SSLy 44 minutes ago [-]
I am afraid MK World isn't even the best kart racer on NS2. It's Sonic Crossworlds
leetrout 35 minutes ago [-]
I'm actually not loving mario kart world. I didn't know the sonic game was a thing so thank you I will check it out.
mghackerlady 1 hours ago [-]
Unless you've played it elsewhere, I'd highly recommend person 3 reload
buellerbueller 54 minutes ago [-]
Caves of Qud.
mcphage 1 hours ago [-]
> 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).
vel0city 2 hours ago [-]
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.
axpy906 26 minutes ago [-]
10% from what to what? Japanese companies are not famous for pay.
IshKebab 7 minutes ago [-]
Yeah without context this could be good or bad.
ilamont 2 hours ago [-]
Japanese Yen is now 162 to USD, the lowest exchange rate since 1986.
pibaker 2 hours ago [-]
And they are seeing sustained inflation for the first time since 2000. Not a great time to be paid in yen.
dartharva 2 hours ago [-]
Great thing about Nintendo is unlike its competitors, they don't go around chasing new tech and business models. All their focus is concentrated on the playing experience - interfacing, fun value, guilt-free hooks etc. In many ways they are more a classic toymaker than a tech firm. This is the reason why they have such a strong following, their product at least is not run by MBAs chasing every chance at a point increase in margins.
I wish there were more such successful "craftsman shops" out there than soulless "service providers" that today's video game companies are.
engeljohnb 2 hours ago [-]
I replayed Luigi's Mansion during a long flight the other day, and my wife looked over my shoulder and went "That game looks cool. Is it new?"
This is exactly why Nintendo games tend to have strong legacies. Everyone back then could see realistic graphics just on the horizon, but they weren't there yet. Nintendo knew that the play experience is the important thing, and made art and designs that work within the limitations. Luigi's Mansion, Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Pikmin all still look and feel so good.
tskj 57 minutes ago [-]
Interestingly Wind Waker's art style was its main detractor among critics when it was released, which is wild and incomprehensible to me now. One of my favorite games of all time.
mghackerlady 20 minutes ago [-]
Indies are where it's at. Increasingly, the modern games I play are either by nintendo or indie devs with the exception of the occasional atlus game
Yeah I'll admit that's obnoxious but one could argue that's technically Nintendo of America, not Nintendo of Japan.
high_na_euv 2 hours ago [-]
I thought it is common in big companies to raise salaries by x% every year?
NikolaNovak 2 hours ago [-]
Not in all / not anymore. I'm in Canada a 300k IT/consulting company and rated top performer several years in a row. No raises last couple of years, before that it was 0.49 and 1% respectively. This year there was zero salary increase for anybody in our branch.
2 minutes ago [-]
toomuchtodo 1 hours ago [-]
Any year you're not getting a raise and there is inflation, you're taking a pay cut. You may know this, sharing as a PSA for those who might not.
ryukoposting 57 minutes ago [-]
Leave, that's BS.
KptMarchewa 1 hours ago [-]
Individual employees. But the base rate (or band) stays the same, which is not what I'm reading here. So you might travel inside the band from low-paid to high-paid, while it stays the same.
tyingq 2 hours ago [-]
When it was, it was typically some amount less than inflation. 1-2%
bluGill 1 hours ago [-]
Every few years I get a 10% raise when they realize those less than inflation raises are enough that they are losing people who places that pay better. (sometime it was me who left, but the cycle repeats at the new place)
brettermeier 2 hours ago [-]
That's what I think I get... So few, I don't even bother to look how much more it is...
topgrain2 2 hours ago [-]
The worst is when you get a manager who’s either too clueless to realize you’re seeing a pay cut from an “increase” so small, or one who knows but is pretending otherwise.
That awkward pause in the comp update meeting when they tell you about the “increase” and seem to expect some positive reaction. LOL.
StefanBatory 50 minutes ago [-]
Could be worse, mine has promised me salary increase thrice this year. Every time coming up with bullshit issues why it couldn't happen.
I am still working on minimum wage (as a DevOps).
dylan604 2 hours ago [-]
If your "raise" is less than the increase from things like inflation, it's not going to be noticeable even if you did look. The concept of cost of living increases is laughable today. Even banks looking at a mortgage application is assuming your salary will increase way beyond what today's raises are. The only way to do that is to jump ship and find a new job, but then you're dinged because your work history is not stable.
16 minutes ago [-]
colechristensen 2 hours ago [-]
Japan had zero or negative interest rates for decades, a period which ended a couple of years ago.
albertgoeswoof 2 hours ago [-]
not anymore
kittikitti 44 minutes ago [-]
Congratulations Nintendo employees! I've always had great conversations and interactions with your engineers so I think this is well deserved.
tekla 1 hours ago [-]
It mostly seems that Nintendo is trying very hard to prevent any concern over their stock price dropping like a rock
Stockholders seem concerned that Nintendo isn't throwing away enough of their seed corn, like all the other major game publishers are.
iLoveOncall 1 hours ago [-]
Before people praise them (a bit late for that I guess given the current comments), Nintendo seems to pay quite poorly their employees in the first place, as you can see from the salaries on https://www.levels.fyi/en-gb/companies/nintendo/salaries/sof... for a company that has a stash of cash and is as successful as they are.
chalupa-supreme 40 minutes ago [-]
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.
Rendered at 14:54:14 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents (3 yen - source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/japanese-snack-company-apolog...)
The country for better or worse seems to be frozen in time - salaries have not caught up with the heady levels of SV (or even Europe) but neither have rents or prices for common goods.
This is not a judgment either way - but it does make Japanese exports a significantly more lucrative business - if only they could figure out how to sell more of their stuff abroad!
No, there really isn't. You're looking at one company that "apologized" as a marketing play but outside of that prices have been increasing with no fanfare for years now. The annual inflation rate has been 2-3% for the past 4 years. It's a lot less interesting to write a news article about that though.
https://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/cpi/158c.html
The fact that the JPY has lost a lot of value compared to the US dollar has nothing to do with how prices or salaries in Japan evolve.
I guess the salaries are lower, but it’s hard to imagine such cheap rent in the equivalent American city.
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.
Does it?
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.
IMO what matters is what you pay; the numbers they post on the menus and other media aren't useful.
(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.)
Also, that meal doesn’t include drinks. Poppies is significantly cheaper if you’re taking it home and supplementing with your own drinks.
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.)
That can't be true. So inflation just doesn't exist in Japan?
All the price increases over the last few years disagree.
I am astounded at some of the starting salaries, these days. Kids, right out of school, make more than I ever did, at the peak of my career.
And can't afford a house.
My father never made more than about $40K, but had a house in Potomac, two cars, and a stay-at-home wife.
Money ain't what it used to be.
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.
I have to say, pretty cool all told if you managed this!
We have some pretty heavy-duty local township bureaucrats.
I would imagine they're able to underpay due to the allure of working for Nintendo combined with a lack of actual positions.
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.
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.
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"?
The cost of living in the US is much higher compared to most other first world/rich countries for one. Count up someone's basic living expenses in the US and those in another country (so taxes, rent and fixed costs) and the US often ends up much higher in terms of absolute values. In other countries, taxes usually soak up more of those fixed costs, reducing them more across the board for most people. The US also has very little protection against surprise fees at checkout (to the annoyance of non-Americans when ordering stuff online from the US), so a lot of stores sell on higher markups relatively speaking, making the same goods more expensive in the US. There's also healthcare, which needs little elaboration because the US is to my knowledge the single most expensive country to live in when it comes to that.
That applies to the US as a whole; it's why someone can say they're making 300k USD a year, say they're apparently barely able to stay afloat and then the rest of the world pretty much regards the US economy as being fundamentally wrong in some form. In most places, 300k USD a year is living in the upper class (as in, "work this job for a decade and you can retire early" money), not scraping the bottom of the barrel. By modern conversion standards, that's about 263k euros, or about 21k euros each month.
Then there's the tech sector specific problems. San Francisco is expensive to live in, and most US tech companies are in SF. Take the US cost of living problem, amplify it specifically for the tech sector (which is usually not talked about, since it's hard to vocalize). Second is that the US tech sector has more creative ideas and money than business sense - throwing money at a problem like the purse doesn't exist is a very US tech thing that doesn't apply anywhere else. It means that it's possible to hire people at far more inflated prices than the job is realistically worth.
Whether a wage is good or bad is pretty much entirely dependent on the local economy. Someone making 2000 EUR a month in Europe makes just above/right below the poverty line. Someone making 2000 EUR a month in Brazil is living an upper class lifestyle. That's an extreme comparison, but is a good indicator.
I'm not saying either is right or wrong, it's just an observation.
No company is perfect, but Nintendo seems like an example some C-suites should follow.
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...
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.
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
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.
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_)
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'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).
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.
I wish there were more such successful "craftsman shops" out there than soulless "service providers" that today's video game companies are.
This is exactly why Nintendo games tend to have strong legacies. Everyone back then could see realistic graphics just on the horizon, but they weren't there yet. Nintendo knew that the play experience is the important thing, and made art and designs that work within the limitations. Luigi's Mansion, Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Pikmin all still look and feel so good.
That awkward pause in the comp update meeting when they tell you about the “increase” and seem to expect some positive reaction. LOL.
I am still working on minimum wage (as a DevOps).
https://www.shacknews.com/article/149817/nintendo-ntdoy-pres...