Everything Is More Expensive Now. Must Be Monday

Plus Nintendo Switch 2 games, Magic The Gathering's dragons, and Nintendo Satellaview

Happy Monday, friends!

The economy is toast. This is bad on multiple levels, but this week we’re looking at how it’s raised PS5 prices once again, which is not how console prices are supposed to work nearly 5 years post release.

Plus, Tim is looking at how Nintendo Switch 2 games are going to work, and at one of Nintendo’s weirder consoles, while I (Alice) love the new Magic the Gathering set.

Enjoy!

The PS5 is more expensive now and that seems bad

By Alice

Remember last week when everyone was shocked that the Nintendo Switch 2 was more expensive than anticipated? Turns out some of the other console companies were disappointed to be left out of the conversation. Today Sony announced that the price of the PS5 is going up in Australia. Because, sure, why not. This may as well happen. In a statement to GadgetGuy, Sony blamed the situation vaguely on “the economic environment” and “inflation”, which is an interesting thing to say while actively contributing to inflation.

This price rise takes the disc drive PS5 up $30 to $829.95 and the digital version up $70 more to $749.95. The good news is that the professional version (PS5 Pro) is staying the same at $1199.95 and the standalone disc drive has gone down $35 to $124.95. By Grabthar’s Hammer, what a savings.

What’s fun is that this marks a huge jump since the PS5 was originally released in 2020. Back in those apparently more economically stable times the disc version launched at $749.95 and the digital version was $599.95. For those playing at home, that’s a 25% jump in the price of the digital version.

This is somewhat unprecedented for Sony. The PS3 famously launched in 2007 at $999.95, and then by 2011 was down to $349.95 (with sales taking it below $300). Meanwhile, the original PS4 launched at $549.95 in 2013 and the Slim version in 2016 sold for $439. Console prices are supposed to go down with age, but 4.5 years on from the PS5 release, we are here.

PlayStation is currently winning in terms of sales, and clearly they’ve done the maths and decided that people will still buy at this price. The Australian dollar is currently tanking, so we can probably expect to see a lot more price rises soon.

The economic realities at the moment probably do mean that things have to rise to meet shareholder profit expectations. The global economy is in the toilet, we’re on the verge of some kind of more intense economic situation depending on the mood of the US president (assuming he is not visited by three ghosts any time soon) and profit margins on console hardware were always pretty thin. It all just kinda sucks.

The price rises are effective as of today, but some stores are still selling at the old prices or less - for example Costco Australia has the PS5 Slim with disc drive for $779.99, and JB Hi Fi has some of the bundles at the old prices - particularly the Astro Bot bundle for $724 (but the standalone consoles largely at the new prices). Good luck out there.

What to play

• We have to give the incredible Blue Prince its own shoutout here, because not only is it a brilliant game but it’s launching on both Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, which is wild. This is kind of a mystery box of a game so I don’t want to spoil it, but yes that’s a pun name, as it all takes place in a magical house with a shifting layout, where you make rougelite-style runs at deciding how to explore while looking for a hidden room.

• Giving it a run for its money in terms of “best new game on the subs” this week though is South of Midnight on Game Pass. This is a gorgeous faux-stop-motion action adventure that blends the rich folklore of the American south with devastating stories about the folks who've lived there, plus it has an astounding score. Also now on Game Pass is Borderlands 3, Diablo 3 and the brand new Commandos: Origins.

• More additions to PlayStation Plus Premium are hitting tomorrow, including Battlefield 1, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage - Tape 2 and Hogwarts Legacy. If you’re paying extra for Deluxe, you also get PS1’s Alone in the Dark 2 and PS2’s War of the Monsters.

• Nintendo has added three Sega Mega Drive games to its library for Switch Online + Expansion Pack members, including one of the greatest games on the whole darn system. Streets of Rage is an incredible beat-em-up with a stellar Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack, really only bested by Streets of Rage 2 which is already on the service. Also there’s ESWAT, an okay arcade-style platformer, and migraine-inducing launch title Super Thunder Blade.

Unpacking the Switch 2 physical games situation

By Tim

Physical games are slowly going away. The biggest gaming platforms, PC and mobile, have no physical games. And on console, they’re little more than plastic licenses for digital games. But there are still some benefits to physical games. They can be shared, swapped and resold and, where they actually contain game data, they’re an option for people with limited or no internet.

Each new console is an opportunity for platform-holders to further erode the physical space in favour of digital, which they prefer for cost reasons, so many players have been watching Nintendo’s moves closely. Unfortunately, the topic has been an absolute minefield of misinformation, not helped by the fact that our social media and search engines now purely serve up the most common and divisive nonsense rather than the most true. So I thought I’d take a look here.

Come June 5 there will be three different kinds of Switch 2 games in physical stores, and all have been misrepresented in some way.

For starters you have the regular full games. I expect we’ll see a lot of variation in price, but in terms of first party we have Mario Kart World at $120 and Donkey Kong Bananza at $110. For whatever reason, the internet has been convinced that the games will cost more at retail, and less as digital downloads on the eShop, but I’ve found no evidence to support this. I think it stems from US hysteria, where Nintendo only confirmed the digital prices. We have the opposite in Australia, where we only have physical prices confirmed, but there’s no specific reason to think digital will be cheaper.

The second kind are Switch 2 Editions, which are updated versions of original Switch games. The rumour here was that the new physical packages merely had the original Switch cartridge, plus a download code for the update, which ruins the benefits of physical listed above. That information came from game boxes on retailer websites, which are designed to warn people not to buy the game if they already have the Switch version (you can buy a digital upgrade pack instead), but also implied the cartridge was identical to the old one. Nintendo has clarified that its own games will have the whole Switch 2 version on the cartridge. Third parties can choose either method.

The final kind is the Game-Key Card, which is essentially an empty cartridge that acts as a download code. I understand why some players hate these, and I understand why publishers like them (high capacity storage is expensive). But as far as I’m concerned this is a case of Nintendo improving the situation with code-in-a-box games. Sure they still won’t work for those with literally no internet access. But they do make the license portable, so you can still sell or swap the game key like you can with other physical games.

Bricks, Boards and Beginnings

by Alice

This is one of those important weeks on the calendar. A time when we get together to celebrate resurrection, rebirth, and new beginnings. I am, of course, referring to the latest Magic the Gathering set, which marks the return of the Tarkir plane. Tarkir: Dragonstorm is all about dragons and clans, as the name suggests. Unlike Ravnica, Tarkir is all about three colour clans - with my favourite (of course) being Abzan (white/green/black).

Last week I had the chance to play with some of the commander decks and it was an absolutely wild ride. Normally the pre-fab decks have a little bit of clunk, are made with less rare cards so players have somewhere to build with them. These decks felt a little clunky, sure, but only because they were so damn over powered. It was glorious. We played with four of the different decks in a single game that lasted around 2.5 hours, with at least 5 board wipes, one player making more than 60 powerful creatures (only to have them wiped), and then another going from dead last, to making so many tokens I lost count and wiping the board with us.

My Abzan deck was singing until the second board wipe. Being able to play a tonne of defenders, so I didn’t look like a threat, then bring out my commander that made all my defenders able to attack and use their toughness number as their power was just ridiculous. There are so many directions I want to take this deck in. It’s fun to play as is, but the whole time I was playing I was thinking about other cards I might want to sub in, and it’s been a long time since a Magic deck made me excited by the idea of deck building.

Tarkir: Dragonstorm is going to be great for players who remember Khans of Tarkir from 12 years ago, but it’s also a good time for newer Magic players who just want a lot of creatures and to have fun making ridiculous board states. This is one of the best Magic sets in ages.

Retro Esoterica

by Tim

Nintendo’s Satellaview, a system that was well ahead of its time but also fatally short-sighted, debuted in Japan 30 years ago this month. You could only get it mail-order or in certain shops, and it comprised a cartridge with some re-writable storage plus a bulky unit to go under your Super Famicom. But you also needed an existing dish, and an expensive tuner adapter, which you could rent to make the whole thing a proto subscription service. 

Once you had all that set up, you had to connect at very specific times in order to play the games. In some cases, these playable broadcasts only lasted an hour and were then gone forever. Unsurprisingly, Satellaview was relatively short-lived and never left Japan. But in retrospect, it had some incredible offerings.

There was a full remake of the original Legend of Zelda, as well as a sequel to Link to the Past. There were entirely original Fire Emblem campaigns, F-Zero leagues and much more. The whole thing also had an operating system of sorts, developed by the weirdos at Nintendo R&D2. You played as a child in a town that had lost its name, and you could go into various buildings and talk to townspeople to begin the games. A menu with clear text items might have been easier to navigate, but it would have been less Nintendo.

As you might expect, a lot of the Satelleview content has proven very difficult to preserve or recreate. The games were designed with strict time limits in mind, and often had a visible timer to show how long you had until the broadcast stopped. Some were episodic, and some even had breaks programmed in so live audio could be streamed in from the satellite to provide hints or backstory.

And yet, an impressive amount of media has somehow been found, and even translated. Yes, playing this today is technically piracy, but I hope you’ll agree that this is an extreme case where the content would literally be lost otherwise. Fans have created custom servers you can use with a real Satellaview to receive broadcasts, but many of the games have also been adapted so you can play them in limited form using a regular flash cartridge, like an Everdrive or FX Pak Pro.