Support NeoGAF

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

I know some of you used an eShop loophole by switching to Russian NNID... Well, the party is over - starting the next eShop update, the prices will go up very highly (at least if we look at them from the prespective of rouble) - at least, as stated, "all Nintendo games and selected third-party games". I wonder if it affects Virtual Console/Wii downloads on Wii U - with these rises, they are basically useless for us.

Here's the link on Nintendo of Russia's announcement on VK: https://vk.com/wall-51893306_19285.

Just to make things clear - before the crash, 2500 roubles was the price of a $60 game. So, since the wages are the same, a $60 game feels as a $100 game. This already happened in the retail, and this is actually quite sad. eShop was the last hope for Russia.

The last two columns are for prices in Nintendo of Russia's eShop code store (via Yandex.Money). I am giving them a big credit - they cut off up to 900 roubles (15 US dollars, and we are talking about real, not "as we feel it" dollars) form the regular eShop prices.

It's a very sad time to be a Nintendo fan in this country, and things weren't that better - Nintendo was non-existent here till the Wii (which was never really marketed as a gaming console by our dumb distributors), and we received the official Nintendo office only starting with the Wii U. By the way, there is still no retail Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, despite the presence of preorders - I think everybody just understands that a low-budget puzzle game with the price bigger than Smash's is going to flop.

CengizMan · Feb 10, 2015

That really sucks for Russia. There must be a way without damaging the consumers in Russia to deal with that loophole.

Wace · Feb 10, 2015

Sony did the same with new games rising from 2999 to 4000. Well, it's nice that I managed to obtain about 20+ titles while it lasted, will be enough for half a year, hopefully.

James Scott · Feb 10, 2015

Very likely has something to do with this
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=983843

dallow_bg · Feb 10, 2015

James Scott said:
Very likely has something to do with this
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=983843

First sentence of the OP.

Yoshi · Feb 10, 2015

Living in russia must be really bad right now, I hope general cost of living (food, rent) were unaffected by the collapse of the ruble. It's unfortunate, that political problems need to be carried out on the back of normal citizens who might not even agree with their government in the points under discussion

.

samn · Feb 10, 2015

EU people, get those orders in now.... already snagged Hyrule Warrios, Captain Toad and Spin the Bottle.

James Scott · Feb 10, 2015

dallow_bg said:
First sentence of the OP.

Oops, I read everything after the picture looking for this. My bad

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

CengizMan said:
That really sucks for Russia. There must be a way without damaging the consumers in Russia to deal with that loophole.

Steam kept the prices the same but made another level or region locking.

Yoshi · Feb 10, 2015

CengizMan said:
That really sucks for Russia. There must be a way without damaging the consumers in Russia to deal with that loophole.

Acrually, I don't think the abuse was the only or even the main factor at play here. they could have just locked people from outside russia or only offer the russian lnaguage options for games bought on the russian eShop. You must remember that Nintendo has to exchange the money earned in russia to Yen, so if the local currency drops, the money they earn by selling game lessens, too.

dallow_bg · Feb 10, 2015

CengizMan said:
That really sucks for Russia. There must be a way without damaging the consumers in Russia to deal with that loophole.

Has nothing to do with the loophole.
Their currency has collapsed.

Wace · Feb 10, 2015

Yoshi said:
Living in russia must be really bad right now, I hope general cost of living (food, rent) were unaffected by the collapse of the ruble. It's unfortunate, that political problems need to be carried out on the back of normal citizens who might not even agree with their government in the points under discussion .

Meh, nothing we haven't survived before. Collapse is rather weak this time, no more than 100%. Prices for local wares are raising slowly, but nothing critical. Videogames were among the last imports to update prices, by the way. We've enjoyed some fat times, now it's time for belt-tightening.

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Yoshi said:
Living in russia must be really bad right now, I hope general cost of living (food, rent) were unaffected by the collapse of the ruble. It's unfortunate, that political problems need to be carried out on the back of normal citizens who might not even agree with their government in the points under discussion .

Well, it's not third-world country type of bad, but things sure got harder. What sucks for me more is that I and my family are half-Ukrainians... no, that doesn't affect directly our lives, but it's just painful to watch how two equally native and once peaceful nations blindly hate each other more than mortal foes.

massoluk · Feb 10, 2015

I guess Russian people should start writing to Putin to end the war so they can have cheaper videogames.

John Dunbar · Feb 10, 2015

this might ultimately be a good thing for russia. putin has never had to deal with anything as dangerous as enraged nintendo fans.

Yoshi · Feb 10, 2015

Wace said:
Meh, nothing we haven't survived before. Collapse is rather weak this time, no more than 100%. Prices for local wares are raising slowly, but nothing critical. Videogames were among the last imports to update prices, by the way. We've enjoyed some fat times, now it's time for belt-tightening.

Quite a way of looking at it, I'm sure Germans wouldn't react anywhere nearly as calmly. Considering the continued lamenting because of a perceived raise in prices due to the Euro (yes, we're talking 10 years ago here, and not an effect remotely comparable to what Russians have to endure right now), I can't even imagine the amount of anger if something like that happened here...

maxcriden · Feb 10, 2015

That really sucks for Russian gamers. I had hoped games would somehow stay cheap for Russia but locked out for those taking advantage of the morally ambiguous price exploit.

Frumix · Feb 10, 2015

massoluk said:
I guess Russian people should start writing to Putin to end the war so they can have cheaper videogames.

You can't be seriously believing it's that simple.

dallow_bg · Feb 10, 2015

maxcriden said:
That really sucks for Russian gamers. I had hoped games would somehow stay cheap for Russia but locked out for those taking advantage of the morally ambiguous price exploit.

Everything is going up. It's not just games, there was no chance they'd stay that low.

Nothing wrong with taking advantage of price fluctuations in the global economy. Most international business works that way.
I import more from Japan now because the yen is so cheap.

Dunan · Feb 10, 2015

Yoshi said:
Acrually, I don't think the abuse was the only or even the main factor at play here. they could have just locked people from outside russia or only offer the russian lnaguage options for games bought on the russian eShop. You must remember that Nintendo has to exchange the money earned in russia to Yen, so if the local currency drops, the money they earn by selling game lessens, too.

This is probably the only thing preventing even bigger increases, because the yen has collapsed against all the other major currencies in the past two years: it was 77 yen to the US dollar in 2012 and is now closer to 120. Here in Japan we are paying much more for imported goods than we were just a few years ago.

If Nintendo's balance sheets were in dollars, things would be even tougher for Russian customers.

Wace · Feb 10, 2015

Yoshi said:
Quite a way of looking at it, I'm sure Germans wouldn't react anywhere nearly as calmly. Considering the continued lamenting because of a perceived raise in prices due to the Euro (yes, we're talking 10 years ago here, and not an effect remotely comparable to what Russians have to endure right now), I can't even imagine the amount of anger if something like that happened here...

State-wide propaganda helps.

But enough of the off-topic. Just want to make a point that while there is console market here now (fat times, fat times), most of the gamers still prefer piracy and PCs (or can switch back there without much of the effort). And I think that's one of the reasons prices were kept low as long as it was possible.

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Dunan said:
This is probably the only thing preventing even bigger increases, because the yen has collapsed against all the other major currencies in the past two years: it was 77 yen to the US dollar in 2012 and is now closer to 120. Here in Japan we are paying much more for imported goods than we were just a few years ago.

If Nintendo's balance sheets were in dollars, things would be even tougher for Russian customers.

Nintendo of Russia has business with Nintendo of Europe Gmbh, not with NCL, so it's Euro/Rouble exchange rate that damages us.

Starwolf_UK · Feb 10, 2015

I wonder if selected third party games is due to prices already being agreed on but the games not yet being released due to being the release queue (assuming the release queue is still a thing). I'd always assumed non-€ prices were locked to what NOE said unless you manually requested an override.

Still the only other case studies we have for this are Canada, South Africa, Australia and the UK (two of those are very recent). The UK is still waiting for the game prices to go down (as €1/=/£0.90) but the Wii Shop was unaffected (as are virtual console games on the Wii U that were on Wii, this leads to the paradox of GBA games being more expensive than SNES games in the UK). The fact the prices went up with the DSi and have stayed high makes me worry what will happen in Russia if things eventually stabalise.

Btw, NOE conversion to South Africa was €1=12zar but is now €1=13zar and went up after actual rates had reach a height of €1=16zar (it is about €1=13zar now).

James Scott said:
Very likely has something to do with this
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=983843

Let's not give too much credit to tapantaola for ruining the Russian eShop as I believe the inflated MM 3D price was already on the eShop before that.

Anyway an interesting interview with the head of Nintendo Russia:
http://ru.ign.com/wiiu/73466/feature/nintendo-v-rossii-deti-net-fanaty-jrpg-da
It should be noted that is focusing on physical games (which already went up in price) and talks about how they stalled it (some of it is they already have the physical games so no point boosting the price).

Although that said I was under the impression the physical games were more expensive than the eShop (plus like the interview says in some parts they are very hard to find).

Edit:

DownGrader said:
Nintendo of Russia has business with Nintendo of Europe Gmbh, not with NCL, so it's Euro/Rouble exchange rate that damages us.

Plus these are eShop prices where NOE run the eShop for all PAL regions so they're effectively letting you pay in Roubles but will convert that to Euros then maybe Yen.

maxcriden · Feb 10, 2015

dallow_bg said:
Everything is going up. It's not just games, there was no chance they'd stay that low.

Nothing wrong with taking advantage of price fluctuations in the global economy. Most international business works that way.
I import more from Japan now because the yen is so cheap.

I understand it's unlikely things would stay that low, I just feel bad for Russian gamers.

The issue is not importing. If you were importing from Russia to buy games I'd have no problem with that, but I believe it breaks the eShop TOS to change your region to buy cheaper games in Russia digitally. I think it's different than importing a physical good, you didn't agree to a TOS as a consumer of physical goods. (not trying to give you a hard time, just my two cents)

CouchMaster · Feb 10, 2015

Same thing happened in India, games that used to cost 2.5k went up to 4k after rupee lost 50% of its value against dollar.

jimi_dini · Feb 10, 2015

maxcriden said:
I understand it's unlikely things would stay that low, I just feel bad for Russian gamers.

Hey, you are finally a full member again. Cheers.

but yeah, the price increase was inevitable.

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Decarb said:
Same thing happened in India, games that used to cost 2.5k went up to 4k after rupee lost 50% of its value against dollar.

TIL rouble and rupee exchange rates are very close to 1:1.

Orniletter · Feb 10, 2015

I feel sorry for the legitimate russion customers who...now....have to pay out the ass, but I won't shed a tear for those mainland europeans who exploited the russion eShop to get games cheaper than they were supposed to.

Starwolf_UK · Feb 10, 2015

maxcriden said:
The issue is not importing. If you were importing from Russia to buy games I'd have no problem with that, but I believe it breaks the eShop TOS to change your region to buy cheaper games in Russia digitally.

Depends on how you view the following part of the Nintendo Network code on conduct:

http://ms.nintendo-europe.com/terms/wiiu/index.html said:
Providing any incorrect or false data when registering the Nintendo Network ID or using Nintendo Network; fraudulent activities on Nintendo Network (in particular, in relation to transactions in Nintendo Shopping Services);

I'd like to think the fraudulent shopping part is more about using stolen credit cards etc (I'd imagine like PSN they auto ban upon chargeback) so more the crime definition of fraud rather than the general deception definition of fraud but saying you're Russian when you're not could be viewed as providing false information.

As for the eShop as used on a 3DS sans NNID. Its terms have a similar statement about fraudulent or unlawful activity being grounds to suspend your use.

gugeifer · Feb 10, 2015

Actually, it's kinda news for another reason - Nintendo is not doing good in Russia.
Previous gen I could find their games and systems in some malls and shops - now I just order from their online shop, because I can't find anything, they either pulled or were pushed from every major country wide chain, if you want to buy, you either order from their online shop or order it elsewhere, like game.co.uk and such.

So, imagine, you operate in a country where PS4 has a cult following (it's like Iphone of consoles here really - you hold up, don't eat for a few months, get yourself PS4, or you are young and successfull and get one - that kind of stuff), Xbox is still living in it's full 360 pirated glory and you are Nintendo who nobody really cares about because you don't put out ads, you just manage with small group of really dedicated fans. And now prices go up.

Granted, Nintendo was at 2014 Moscow Igromir convention (and it was great, you could play a bunch of games and win prizes), they launch games, they are really showing that they are special and we love them, but it doesn't really help, Nintendo is distanced now from customer in Russia more then ever in recent history.

MUnited83 · Feb 10, 2015

maxcriden said:
I understand it's unlikely things would stay that low, I just feel bad for Russian gamers.

The issue is not importing. If you were importing from Russia to buy games I'd have no problem with that, but I believe it breaks the eShop TOS to change your region to buy cheaper games in Russia digitally. I think it's different than importing a physical good, you didn't agree to a TOS as a consumer of physical goods. (not trying to give you a hard time, just my two cents)

It doesn't because you can just create a new account to do that, not change the region your main account is on.

dallow_bg said:
Has nothing to do with the loophole.
Their currency has collapsed.

This. Games were expensive as fuck before the collapse and they would almost match the US pricing.

Kouriozan · Feb 10, 2015

Thanks whoever pointed it out for everyone

But really, almost everything increased there, even apple stopped selling app for a while.

robotnik · Feb 10, 2015

Didn't care before, don't care now. If I want something I'll import it from Canada. Still cheaper, than this abomination.

Dunan · Feb 10, 2015

Kouriozan said:
Thanks whoever pointed it out for everyone
But really, almost everything increased there, even apple stopped selling app for a while.

Don't even get me started on how, after several big price jumps, Apple suddenly and without warning raised the price of the iPhone by a further 14% overnight to reflect even further falls in the value of the yen. ^_^;

antennaehead · Feb 10, 2015

For what it's worth, I think it was pretty cool of Nintendo to keep those low prices for that long.

BibiMaghoo · Feb 10, 2015

#thankstapantaola

Shotgun Kiss · Feb 10, 2015

Anybody who thinks that Nintendo would change their pricing structure in the largest country in the world because a few people took advantage of a long-winded trick, is fooling themselves.

The prices are being amended for the same reason the exploit was possible in the first place; their economy is doing really badly.

Mr White · Feb 10, 2015

Yoshi said:
Living in russia must be really bad right now, I hope general cost of living (food, rent) were unaffected by the collapse of the ruble. It's unfortunate, that political problems need to be carried out on the back of normal citizens who might not even agree with their government in the points under discussion .

Well, this kind of shit happens every 10-15 years here. So, nothing new to us. Sad part, that these prices on videogames really hurts our very small console market. Thankfully Valve didn't rise prices on Steam.

Dash Kappei · Feb 10, 2015

Does the Wii's VC shop or Wiiware exist in Russia? I mean, can you guys buy vc games on Wii? if yes (which I'm doubtful), how are the prices?

Dash Kappei · Feb 10, 2015

Also, the third colum says 1529 for Toad, but on the eshop right now is 1625?
And also all the other titles have a lower eprice on the third column, where can you buy them like that? I only see prices as the first column (and of course those will change in two days).

Son Of D · Feb 10, 2015

Dash Kappei said:
Also, the second third colum says 1529 for Toad, but on the eshop right now is 1625?
And also all the other titles have a lower eprice on the third column, where can you buy them like that?

I think that's for buying them in a retailer. Probably the Russian equivalent to Gamestop/GAME etc.

Dash Kappei · Feb 10, 2015

Son Of D said:
I think that's for buying them in a retailer. Probably the Russian equivalent to Gamestop/GAME etc.

They're eShop codes then? Is there anywhere online where I can buy those?

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Dash Kappei said:
Does the Wii's VC shop or Wiiware exist in Russia? I mean, can you guys buy vc games on Wii? if yes (which I'm doubtful), how are the prices?

Actually, no. It wasn't available in Wii era since Nintendo was represented in Russia via third-party importers, and when Nintendo of Russia was formed (that happened, IIRC, alongside with the launch of Wii U), nobody really cared about it.

robotnik · Feb 10, 2015

Dash Kappei said:
They're eShop codes then? Is there anywhere online where I can buy those?

https://money.yandex.ru/nintendo/

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Son Of D said:
I think that's for buying them in a retailer. Probably the Russian equivalent to Gamestop/GAME etc.

No, it's for digital codes in Nintendo section of money.yandex.ru, an e-currency and online shop service by Yandex (Russian web search giant, like Baidu in China).

Palette Swap · Feb 10, 2015

robotnik said:
https://money.yandex.ru/nintendo/

I guess they'll probably change that soon or go OOS, though.
I don't have a WiiU yet and am contemplating buying some games there just in case.

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Palette Swap said:
I guess they'll probably change that soon or go OOS, though.
I don't have a WiiU yet and am contemplating buying some games there just in case.

They will - the last two columns are for Yandex.Money. It will still be cheaper than eShop and maybe even cheaper that the retail.

OverturePT · Feb 10, 2015

robotnik said:
https://money.yandex.ru/nintendo/

You can buy from here and get a code to redeem on the eshop? Does it have to be on the Russian eshop or does it work in all of EU?

Stereogatari · Feb 10, 2015

Funnily enough earlier today I unboxed and hooked up the WiiU I bought last week and was hesitating whether to buy Super Mario 3D World from the Russian eShop or not when I got to the payment page, but looks like I'll have to make a decision quick then.

Shame that in the long term I won't be able to buy the games for as relatively cheaply as I got the console, but might as well make use of this once or twice before the prices go up.

How does it work through that Yandex thing? Sign up, buy it and get the download code?

Pixel Warrior said:
You can buy from here and get a code to redeem on the eshop? Does it have to be on the Russian eshop or does it work in all of EU?

Good question.

DownGrader · Feb 10, 2015

Stereogatari said:
Funnily enough earlier today I unboxed and hooked up the WiiU I bought last week and was hesitating whether to buy Super Mario 3D World from the Russian eShop or not when I got to the payment page, but looks like I'll have to make a decision quick then.

Shame that in the long term I won't be able to buy the games for as relatively cheaply as I got the console, but might as well make use of this once or twice before the prices go up.

I recommend you to buy Mario Kart 8 DLCs in advance - maybe you'll find retail copy cheap... but I highly doubt it - I have barely seen used MK8s since launch.

Support NeoGAF

Russian Nintendo eShop/digital prices to rise up to 185% on 12.02

Member

Member

Member

Banned

nods at old men

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt

Member

Banned

Member

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt

nods at old men

Member

Member

Banned

correct about everything

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt

Member

Suffering From Success

nods at old men

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

For you.

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Not actually that important

Not actually that important

Member

Not actually that important

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Similar threads