Oh, I don't think they're quite comparable due to scale, as you say. Especially since one can argue if you're buying goods from another country technically you're actually helping their economy by spending in it. It's more that I find the entire thing a bit hypocritical you know, people are fast to blame consumers doing this even though it actually wouldn't negatively affect the citizens if it wasn't for corporate greed. Yet the same companies are doing it every single day and no complaints there.
No, I'm saying that maybe you should blame the big corporate companies for raising their prices instead of consumers taking advantage of globalisation.
Indeed, it sucks but people who want those games will just have to go physical
I'm not convinced how much of an economic impact it would have, but I am quite amused at the idea of combined sales tax receipts from people taking advantage of regional pricing technically adding to tax revenue for South Africa now.
Oh yeah, it's probably not a lot, lol. Especially since really I doubt many people actually took advantage of it, as mentioned previously, they truly weren't any cheaper than retail copies in other EU countries(in the UK it was actually still dearer than physical most of the time). I'd imagine a lot of people are just like me where I've basically been conditioned into buying physical 99% of the time on console due to really poor European digital pricing.
You do realize that it works both ways, right? There are lots of games that are more expensive in, say, the Mexican eShop than in the American eShop. Do you fault the Mexicans for using other regions?
Depends on the game, depends on the region. Like I said above, it's actually pretty case-by-case.
You do realise that is literally what I said, lmao. You're making it out as if I said something entirely different so you can go off on a tangent and not respond to the topic at hand of why you want to blame consumers and not Nintendo?
And it's also pretty concrete proof that this has nothing to do with people shopping outside their region. Nintendo First Party is actually more expensive in most countries than in America.
Because the cost of living for you versus somebody in SA is different. The lower prices reflect the market conditions so they pay the equivalent based on those factors.
Except not all the prices are lower and many prices are higher vs other regions. It's up to the publisher and in this case Nintendo was already charging those regions more. This isn't about people abusing regional pricing, regardless of how you feel about regional pricing.
Plus, if you have debit/credit card for other country, it will be even more because of bank fees on conversion to local currency.
So that's interesting because NoA processes payments for all of North America. If you use an American PayPal account to buy from the Mexican eShop, or vice versa, there is no conversion fee and NoA shows up on your bank statement. And the software from both regions is functionally identical.
It's actually really easy, i just have the one alt account, paid with paypal, and it has no effect on how I use the software. It's like i bought it from my main account.
You can change regions all you like even when part of a family sub. I have my account set to the US due to Dragalia Lost, periodically swapping back to the UK to register games/redeem codes like the pirahna plant and it's not affected my nintendo online family sub. It tells you to turn off auto renewal but that's it.
They already do. The whole "regional pricing abuse" thing is misplaced, misguided outrage
Ah, Interesting. Thanks guys. I guess I've been missing out a bit but I've been buying eShop games about 15% below retail so not a huge loss probably.
US prices look lower than they actually are (or maybe it would be more accurate to say European prices look higher than they actually are) because they don't include sales tax.
You absolutely shouldn't. We live in a capitalist society designed to exploit us for all we're worth. Save a buck any way you can.
People need to understand how globalization works and all the little factors that effect companies and consumers.
Well, in all fairness, that's due to the fact that the US has no national sales, unlike many other countries (via VAT or sales tax).
And you don't care that doing this makes this happen (raising those countries' prices)?
No, why would I care? They can raise the price if they want (I wouldn't complain about that, I would simply buy at the next cheapest option) but they have to accept the backlash from other players in said country then. I have to say I have not done this with Nintendo games because I refuse to buy their eShop stuff, but I have done this for some PC games and I would for Nintendo too if I bought games on the eShop.
