Nintendo says they're not legally obligated to pass tariff refunds to customers

[Bakuma1997]

GOD DAMN IT SONY!!!

Mario: What i did now paisano?

Force of habit, sorry

 

[HazardRider]

Absolutely shitty move but ultimately I'm still mad at the stupid tariffs to begin with

 

[NOTthatHARD]

The "tariffs" were the perfect excuse for nintendo to raise prices, while also making themselves look like the poor innocent victims; perfect example of abuser behavior right there.

 

[extermist]

This might come off as dumb.. but isn't this part normal?
Aren't tariffs juat tax and tax is normally unrefundable?

Correct me if I'm missing details, since I just heard and read about it just now.

 

[Netra]

Not a surprise, it's Nintendo.

 

[LotsOfBits]

The Supreme Court said they were.

Might want to ask yourself the same question.

If the US supreme court says a lot of stupid crap

 

[Kovlak]

This might come off as dumb.. but isn't this part normal?
Aren't tariffs juat tax and tax is normally unrefundable?

Correct me if I'm missing details, since I just heard and read about it just now.

Yes, but that's for normal tax. This was an extraordinary punitive tax that was deemed illegal and refunded. But just not passed to customers in any sort of way, like some extra digital currency.

 

[Khameleon Khameleon]

Wild that Nintendo is such a family friendly console/games yet the people behind it are such scum.

 

[HazardRider]

Wild that Nintendo is such a family friendly console/games yet the people behind it are such scum.

The devs are cool, it's just the ones on the business side who are greedy pigs, which just describes all major game companies now sadly...

 

[Kovlak]

it's just the ones on the business side who are greedy pigs, which just describes all major game companies now sadly...

There's no love for videogames at the top.

 

[hyperdeathRainbow]

"Family friendly" company makes consumer unfriendly business practices, who could have figured?

 

[Kovlak]

"Family friendly" company makes consumer unfriendly business practices, who could have figured?

I think this is more to do with the nature of a private enterprise and of public traded companies, especially in largely unregulated economies, where they will forego everything in search of larger revenues and crushing the competition. They're engaged in warfare in the abstract of the economy. There is no inherent love for the people who support them or the places from which they extract their wealth. There's likely, inherently, in many the hatred of that dependent relationship. Of having to cater to the unwashed masses and deal with them and their partners, and the desire to destroy them. A freudian impulse for violence and destruction.

 

[Starwind Amada]

Can we keep the political conversation to literally anywhere but here? You can talk about this stuff almost anywhere else on the internet, and in the real world. This is a place to talk about games.

I didn't start the topic. Tell OP not to post about tariffs.

 

[CrunchyComputer]

Truthfully, nothing any of these companies do anymore really surprises me. They've become so completely disconnected from where their morals should be that every year it seems like they come up with some new way to piss off their own fans. It feels like they're trying to squeeze every last dollar they can out of people before the goodwill finally runs out.

At the end of the day, no handful of people boycotting Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, or whoever is really going to change anything. Hell, I'm not even sure a few thousand people walking away would make much of a dent. These companies have more money than most of us will ever see, and losing a few customers is probably about as noticeable to them as someone being ten cents short at the checkout line.

They'll keep looking for new ways to make more money, cut more corners, and see just how much consumers are willing to put up with before they finally say "enough." Unfortunately, people keep buying the products anyway, so from their perspective, why stop?

And if they can find a way to screw us over a little harder without even asking if we'd like some lube first, they'll probably do that too.

 

[Kovlak]

At the end of the day, no handful of people boycotting Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, or whoever is really going to change anything. Hell, I'm not even sure a few thousand people walking away would make much of a dent. These companies have more money than most of us will ever see, and losing a few customers is probably about as noticeable to them as someone being ten cents short at the checkout line.

That may be, but companies make most of their money on confidence. If they report a bad quarter they start losing investor confidence and their stocks start dipping, which they'll likely try to offset by layoffs and new anticonsumer practices, which piss their fans even more, and in turn hurts more their bottom line and, on the medium term, their stocks. If they can't turn it around, it turns into a death spiral.

Xbox seems locked in death spiral.
PlayStation seems to have gotten itself in one as well.
Nintendo is doing good because it's by far the most accessible and "friendly". But I don't believe they'll get any more pro-consumer in the future as they overcome PlayStation.

 

[pinetreeneedle56]

Y'know what? I'm not surprised. Hear me out:

1. Consoles are entirely created by corporations; which means that to please investors, they have to create as much profit as humanly possible with as little expense as possible. With the advancement of small form computers/phones/emulation (despite all attempts to sabotage emulation), the writing is on the wall that consoles will be a relic of the early/late 00's by the end of the decade.

2. Management detachment is pandemic in the company world. If franchise popularity wasnt enough, brand loalty gets consumers to buy new games, no matter the decrease in quality. Why bother improving your sudio when mediocraty rakes in cash, because people wont stand up for themselves? Why bother listening to the writing on the wall, when your loyal playerbase will attack any criticism on your behalf? (See Helldivers as one example)

What do you guys think?

 

[Kovlak]

Y'know what? I'm not surprised. Hear me out:

1. Consoles are entirely created by corporations; which means that to please investors, they have to create as much profit as humanly possible with as little expense as possible. With the advancement of small form computers/phones/emulation (despite all attempts to sabotage emulation), the writing is on the wall that consoles will be a relic of the early/late 00's by the end of the decade.

2. Management detachment is pandemic in the company world. If franchise popularity wasnt enough, brand loalty gets consumers to buy new games, no matter the decrease in quality. Why bother improving your sudio when mediocraty rakes in cash, because people wont stand up for themselves? Why bother listening to the writing on the wall, when your loyal playerbase will attack any criticism on your behalf? (See Helldivers as one example)

What do you guys think?

That's what's about.

More broadly our civilization is decline. It's in a state where the creativity, freedom and joy are being increasingly snuffed out by an emphasis on organization and management, bureaucracy, by executives and people who are also devoid of creativity, detached and think like them, destroying the joy in living and leaving us feeling empty and bereft, exhausting the spirit of our civilization.

 

[HazardRider]

That's what's about.

More broadly our civilization is decline. It's in a state where the creativity, freedom and joy are being increasingly snuffed out by an emphasis on organization and management, by executives and people who are detached and think like them, destroying the joy in living and leaving us feeling empty and bereft.

Especially now with *That which shall not be named* being advertised to the corporations as "Here's a robot that can replace your entire staff with a push of a button!"

 

[Kovlak]

Especially now with *That which shall not be named* being advertised to the corporations as "Here's a robot that can replace your entire staff with a push of a button!"

And with AI being in essence unreliable, if actually useful.

 

[gwardojones]

I think this is more to do with the nature of a private enterprise and of public traded companies, especially in largely unregulated economies, where they will forego everything in search of larger revenues and crushing the competition. They're engaged in warfare in the abstract of the economy. There is no inherent love for the people who support them or the places from which they extract their wealth. There's likely, inherently, in many the hatred of that dependent relationship. Of having to cater to the unwashed masses and deal with them and their partners, and the desire to destroy them. A freudian impulse for violence and destruction.

I've done a lot of work with game companies and I can say very few people in them actually care about the customers at all. Best case they see them as space aliens; not with hostility, but with a "how do we come to understand these strange beings" sort of way. Even the actual gamers within most major gaming companies I've worked with are seen as the oddballs in their respective departments. Upper management barely acknowledges their consumers' existence. They just want to see the green line go up and almost nothing else. How they get there is completely irrelevant.

And with AI being in essence unreliable, if actually useful.

God bless you for being levelheaded about AI. Signs are pointing to it being a dud, but every other day it's another article or speech about how "AI is so smart it's going to kill us," or "AI is replacing everything because it's so powerful." It's not. It doesn't know how many fingers a human hand has. It can't tell you how many Rs are in 'Strawberry'. The American military has also tried to use it for battlefield imaging and it doesn't accurately layout any field it attempts to image. It hallucinates. It can't remember the previous question you asked it. It freaks out if you ask it if a seahorse emoji exists on mobile phones. This is not the sci-fi future tech everyone has been lead to believe it is.

More recently, there are reports that it costs three US dollars for every dollar it makes. And business owners are coming out and saying they sacked entire departments for AI, but it's actually costing them more than their human workers did, and their efficiency is worse for it.

30% of the US's economy is now tied to AI and it's not paying out what's being put into it. What's much more likely is we're going to see a massive global economic downturn when the moneymen finally come to grips with AI being a complete dud and stop investing.

 

[Kovlak]

I've done a lot of work with game companies and I can say very few people in them actually care about the customers at all. Best case they see them as space aliens; not with hostility, but with a "how do we come to understand these strange beings" sort of way. Even the actual gamers within most major gaming companies I've worked with are seen as the oddballs in their respective departments. Upper management barely acknowledges their consumers' existence. They just want to see the green line go up and almost nothing else. How they get there is completely irrelevant.

God bless you for being levelheaded about AI. Signs are pointing to it being a dud, but every other day it's another article or speech about how "AI is so smart it's going to kill us," or "AI is replacing everything because it's so powerful." It's not. It doesn't know how many fingers a human hand has. It can't tell you how many Rs are in 'Strawberry'. The American military has also tried to use it for battlefield imaging and it doesn't accurately layout any field it attempts to image. It hallucinates. It can't remember the previous question you asked it. It freaks out if you ask it if a seahorse emoji exists on mobile phones. This is not the sci-fi future tech everyone has been lead to believe it is.

More recently, there are reports that it costs three US dollars for every dollar it makes. And business owners are coming out and saying they sacked entire departments for AI, but it's actually costing them more than their human workers did, and their efficiency is worse for it.

30% of the US's economy is now tied to AI and it's not paying out what's being put into it. What's much more likely is we're going to see a massive global economic downturn when the moneymen finally come to grips with AI being a complete dud and stop investing.

AI sure has its uses, but it's nowhere the massive boon people, especially AI executives and pundits think it is. And it's very expensive. It will eventually be downscaled accordingly.

 

[extermist]

AI sure has its uses, but it's nowhere the massive boon people, especially AI executives and pundits think it is. And it's very expensive. It will eventually be downscaled accordingly.

Realistically only the consumer grade AIs will downscale, what most people don't take into account is that world governments are the biggest funders of AI and use them for security, survalance and warfare.
And no international superpower wants to be caught dead with their pants down.

 

[Kovlak]

Realistically only the consumer grade AIs will downscale, what most people don't take into account is that world governments are the biggest funders of AI and use them for security, survalance and warfare.
And no international superpower wants to be caught dead with their pants down.

True. But even there, there's too many AIs for the Defense. And some will most likely be excluded as they show themselves as consistently poorer models. It's going to be the Internet services crash all over again.

 

[KrazyKoen]

I personally don't care much. Yeah, Nintendo should probably reimburse their consumers but I paid 500 for the Switch 2 because to me it was worth that price. Shuntaro Furukawa didn't break into my house and hold me at gunpoint while I preordered it.