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General Chat / Re: The Major League Baseball Thread: Did SI Swipe The 2025 Sports Almanac?

« on: September 26, 2025, 02:55:42 PM »

The Jays are my team but with the Mariners being the closet team to me and having gone to games in Seattle many times I have a soft spot for them as well.  My brother is an outright M's fan, so with both teams in the playoffs it could get interesting in my family, if it ends up being him against our dad and I.  It's going to eat a lot into Switch time but it will be nice to watch the playoffs with Dad.  Brings back memories of '92.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch Online Expansion Pack Breaks Glass, Unleashes Virtual Boy

« on: September 12, 2025, 02:06:21 PM »

You have to buy an accessory to play games that you cannot actually buy.  If you're a collector I almost suggest you buy the plastic model.  Though it will eventually become totally useless, they're probably going to sell and make so few of these things that it will probably be a valuable collector's item someday.  I'm thinking like how Pokemon Box was laughed at when it came out and now is a Gamecube holy grail item.

The frustrating thing is that they had a system on the market for years that had glasses free 3D and they didn't re-release these games then.

What they really should do is sell the accessory with the games built in.  You still need a Switch or Switch 2 but no subscription necessary.  For a niche product like this it makes no sense to combine an expensive purchase with a subscription.  For the accessory and all of the games, $100 is not a terrible value.  But the approach they're going with is laughably greedy for a product that's notorious for being a huge bomb.  Will they even sell a thousand of these things?

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TalkBack / Re: Next Nintendo Direct To Air September 12

« on: September 12, 2025, 11:22:53 AM »

Yeah, that Danganronpa 2 remake was rather strange.  That game is already available on the Switch and by extension Switch 2.  And if they're going to remake the series why wouldn't they start with the first one?

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TalkBack / Re: Next Nintendo Direct To Air September 12

« on: September 12, 2025, 10:57:14 AM »

Well this wasn't really worth getting up at 6AM for.  We got the Metroid date and it's this year so that's good!

Switch 1 is still getting a lot of stuff but I can't really think of anything from this Direct that wasn't already announced that I can see picking up.  On the Switch 2 side, there's some interesting stuff.  I haven't gotten into the Fire Emblem series yet but I know it has a strong fanbase.  Monter Hunter Stories 3 looks interesting to me.  Neither of those would convince me to get a Switch 2 though.  Even in regards to the ports I wanted on a Switch 2, we're still not getting them.  I figured we would see games like Metaphor: Refantasio and Visons of Mana - like all the stuff that skipped the Switch 1 but still made the PS4, but they haven't shown up.

Something I really don't like about the format of these things is that they'll show a trailer and then a Nintendo guy will explain the very thing you just saw.  Don't bother with that.  It just drags the presentation on.

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TalkBack / Re: Next Nintendo Direct To Air September 12

« on: September 10, 2025, 02:40:06 PM »

@IANSANE - You don’t want to try Donkey Kong? Or have you yet? It’s such a good game and while I don’t know your tastes any longer I think you would absolutely love it. Phooey on that 8.5! That game is a solid 9.99999999 all the way around! And I don’t just say this as Donkey Kong nutcase, it is really a great game!

It looks like a great game but getting a Switch 2 and a copy of the game would cost me $730 CAD.  With the Switch 1 still getting lots of support and the Switch 2 lineup being pretty thin I can't justify that price.  I need multiple games that I can't get on the Switch 1 and a price cut for both the system and games in my country would help a lot too.  I might need a stronger Canadian dollar to get the second part.

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TalkBack / Re: Next Nintendo Direct To Air September 12

« on: September 10, 2025, 11:56:38 AM »

If we don't get a release date for Metroid Prime 4 this time I'm going to... well I guess I won't not buy the game because my whole reason for caring is from wanting to play it.  And I'm not going to stop buying Switch 1 games.  I could refuse to buy a Switch 2 but I'm sort of already doing that, not really out of a principle but just a lack of justification for the price tag.

Okay, so there is really nothing I'm willing to do to Nintendo.  But I'll be very mad and will badmouth them on the internet, uh, so there!

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TalkBack / Re: Kirby Air Riders 2 Getting Direct August 19

« on: August 19, 2025, 11:45:20 AM »

So they revealed Kirby's release date as Nov 20.  That is a lot later than I expected.  I figured worse case scenario it would be October.

Now what are the odds Nintendo releases anything in 2025 after Nov 20?  After that you risk missing the Christmas shopping window.  So I fear Metroid is moving to 2026.  Why would they give Kirby a Direct first if it was the later game in the release schedule?  You figure they would do all of this in order.  So a Nov 20 date suggests that nothing that has been announced but doesn't have a date will get released before then.  And it's late Nov too.  A Dec release would probably be at the beginning of the month.  I can't imagine Kirby on Nov 20 and Metroid only a few weeks later.

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TalkBack / Re: Kirby Air Riders 2 Getting Direct August 19

« on: August 18, 2025, 11:59:19 AM »

I figured we would get a Direct after Drag x Drive came out.  Somehow the running gag of not revealing Metroid Prime 4's release date continues.

45 minutes seems really long for one game.  That long would be hell for a game I'm not interested in and for a game I am I feel like that would spoil too much.  I guess I would have thought it was awesome when I was 10 years old and didn't care about spoilers.

I only know the original Kirby Air Ride as that Gamecube game where you press one button and it virtually plays itself. It came across as barely a game.  And in general Kirby games are usually pretty good but never something I'm really excited about.  If I'm going to skip a first party release, Kirby tends to get the cut more times than not.  So I'm not going to check out the 45 minute Direct, maybe a shorter trailer if they have one.

I am curious as to when the release date will be.  This might be an indication of how Nintendo wants to reveal information now.  They seem to want to do one game at a time.  So is Kirby coming out a month from now?  Two months?  We can probably assume that the lead time from this Direct to the release date will be similar for other future game-specific Directs and that will apply to the other first party releases that are supposedly coming out this year.

Still I don't understand why Nintendo wants to drip feed us this info.  Having a new console with a barren release schedule doesn't give people confidence in your product so why have it appear that way when there actually are releases coming soon?

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TalkBack / Re: Indie World Presentation To Air August 7

« on: August 05, 2025, 11:48:40 AM »

It's becoming amusing how Nintendo keeps giving us these presentations but each one has a theme that allows them to avoid revealing release dates for their own first party games.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Pricing In United States To Be Adjusted Starting Sunday As Canadian Increases St

« on: August 01, 2025, 10:51:32 AM »

So I was fearing Switch 2-style $100 CAD games so "only" 5 bucks isn't so bad.  Still it looks so ridiculous on the eShop to see first party Nintendo games that are years old now charging $85.  Ignore the price increases for new games, why the hell are games from 2017 having a price increase?  Nintendo should have lower prices for their older games to begin with and having this increase just emphasizes how ridiculous that is.

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TalkBack / Re: Chillin' by the Fire Shadowdrops Onto Nintendo Switch 2

« on: July 31, 2025, 12:25:46 PM »

While watching this portion of the Direct my mind kept going to the old Simpsons bit "Really, is this a joke?"  I'm half expecting AAA Clock to make a Direct next.

I can only assume this got any sort of legitimate placement in the Direct because it uses the camera and there were probably no other third party games at all that use it.  Nintendo wants you to care about this feature, dammit!

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase To Air July 31

« on: July 31, 2025, 12:05:33 PM »

So now that the Direct has come and gone, Hyrule Warriors also has no proper release date.  Is this like a new Nintendo thing, where they won't commit to a release date until the last minute?  Or are both games in risk of a delay?  It just seems odd for Nintendo to have two games that are supposed to come out in 2025 but still have no release dates when we're almost in August.  They're not going to release something in late December as they'll want everything available in time for Christmas.  If either game was coming in August they would have announced a date by now.  So we've got about a three month window where these would come out if they stick to 2025.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase To Air July 31

« on: July 30, 2025, 11:58:56 AM »

On one hand, it's good to see a showcase like this.  It will probably have a fair amount of Switch 1 stuff so it probably has more relevant content for someone like myself who doesn't have a Switch 2.

But as a partner showcase it will not have the one thing I want to know and that's the Metroid Prime 4 release date.  Or frankly the release date for any Nintendo first party games for the rest of the year aside from Pokemon.  Is there a reason they're not giving us these dates?  Has everything fallen so behind that the rest of the 2025 lineup is up in the air and could move to 2026?  I'm especially worried about Metroid because not only do I not want yet another delay but I fear that if it moves too far into the future that they'll decide to not bother with the Switch 1 version.  Another delay is a potential cancelation.

So hooray for the Partner Showcase but at this exact moment that isn't what I want, which hurts my enthusiasm for it.

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TalkBack / Re: Canadian Switch 1 System, Game, And Accessory Pricing To Be

« on: June 30, 2025, 02:35:57 PM »

So my take is that if I've been putting off purchasing some Switch 1 games I should get them now.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Sells 3.5 Million Units In First Four Days To Become Fastest Selling System In Nintendo

« on: June 11, 2025, 01:31:32 PM »

I expected the launch units to sell out.  The biggest issue with the Switch 2 is the pricing.  That's going to cut out the poorest of the existing Switch 1 userbase but there would certainly be 3.5 million people above them in the list that could easily afford the higher price and wouldn't care about paying it.  The real test is long term when the earlier adopters all have their Switch 2s.

But the system price is not unreasonable for the tech you get.  The bigger issue are the game prices.  So what will the attach rate be for games compared to the Switch 1?  If the games cost more, but a person's gaming budget doesn't change, they'll buy less games.  Nintendo might be ready to declare the $80 game experiment a success because of Mario Kart World but anyone who got the bundle paid only $50 for it.  Let's see how it works for an $80 game with no alternate price option at release.

I also would be curious to see how these figures break out by country.  Here in Canada the most expensive Switch 2 games are $115, which is insane.  Mario Kart World is $110 as the $115 price seems to be for Switch 2 versions of certain Switch 1 games.  So how are those games selling in that country or any country where the prices have shot up over a hundred bucks?  We don't think of our money as a conversion from USD.  $100 is $100.  So I think there's a possibility that Nintendo may be pushing right up to the limit for the American pricing but in other countries they may be pushing far past that.  There is a psychological element to something going from a two digit to three digit price.

Nintendo does deserve credit for having produced a good amount of these things.  The early adopters will all get one within the first few months, presumably without having to go through a scalper which is great.  Christmas will give us good numbers as those sales will have moved beyond the most devoted to the more general population.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Will you be willing to buy Virtual Game Cards, or would go all digital instead?

« on: June 02, 2025, 01:40:37 PM »

Luigi Dude is depressing me with the 20-30 years comment.  I'm currently playing a PS2 game that is now over 20 years old.  Will I be playing an equivalent of that when I'm in my 60s?  Hmmmm.

Though we don't need to go 20 years.  The Switch is 8 years old which means that the 3DS ceased to be a current system 8 years ago.  If I want to play a 3DS game today that I don't already own I need to find a used cart.  I can't buy it from the digital store anymore and Nintendo cut that cord really quick.  Now with the Switch 2 being backwards compatible that is not likely going to happen with the Switch 1.  It seems Nintendo is now finally using one store and account that will cross multiple generations.  But it wasn't always that way and that was a good reason to support physical games on the Switch.

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TalkBack / Re: Some Form Of Chrono Trigger Release Coming?

« on: May 02, 2025, 05:40:30 PM »

Coincidently enough I'm currently playing Chrono Trigger on the SNES - my third attempt to beat it over the last 30 years as somehow every previous attempt would have something come up to eat up my gaming time and kill my momentum.  I'm quite close to the end so it should be doable.  Timing is funny though if this is on the doorstep.

I hope it comes out for the Switch 1 as well.  Not like I would get it since I have both the SNES and Playstation versions already but there's a part of me that just wants to see it for completeness sake.  The Switch library is a fantastic sampler of game history and it already has so many big hitters in the RPG genre including Chrono Cross.  Chrono Trigger seems like the big omission.  Like if you only played RPGs on the Switch 1 you would have a fantastic curated RPG list from the early days up to 2025 but without Chrono Trigger it feels incomplete.

I'm also curious to see how much the Switch 1 is going to still be included in multi-platform releases after the Switch 2 is out.  A brand new game would probably not work but a Chrono Trigger HD-2D remake like the Dragon Quest ones?  There is no reason the Switch 1 couldn't handle it.  The Switch 1 is one of the highest selling game systems ever so you would think it would still be supported for a few years since other successful systems were.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Will you be willing to buy Virtual Game Cards, or would go all digital instead?

« on: April 29, 2025, 02:16:47 AM »

The Game Key Card thing has become more concerning to me lately.  In Japan every single third party "physical" release is a Game Key Card.  A lot of the North American third party games are going to be them as well.  This includes games that are going to be released simultaneously on the Switch 1 and 2 and the Switch 1 version is going to be a proper physical release.

Raidou Remastered is a game I'm interested in for the Switch 1.  The Collector's Edition of the Switch 2 version has been revealed to be a Game Key Card so that's a couple hundred bucks for essentially a code in a box.  And Limited Run is handling that version.  The whole point of that company is that they offer physical versions that are complete on the cart.

The way that third parties have so enthusiastically embraced this phony physical game it feels like Nintendo is somewhat releasing a digital-only console backdoor and hoping we don't notice.  Rumour has it that Nintendo is not offering smaller sizes for the cartridges so third parties either have to pay full price for the largest size card or go with the Key Card option with no options in between.  I was hoping this concept would crash and burn once it was released to the market but with no option for a physical third party release in Japan it seems unlikely that the early adopters won't just give in.  Or these "physical" games will sell poorly and that will get used as justification to offer more digital-only releases.  You don't want people buying physical games anymore so you sabotage the concept and then when it gets rejected you act as if removing the option outright is just reacting to the market's wishes.

The Switch 2's price point was keeping me from buying it any time soon anyway but now I feel like I purposely want to stick with the Switch 1 to keep supporting proper physical releases.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Preorders To Open April 24 With System Prices Remaining As Announced

« on: April 18, 2025, 10:35:17 AM »

Nintendo of Canada's website confirms the April 24th date.  It also has what I'm pretty sure are the first confirmed prices.  Games are $100-110.  Yeah right.  I'm not going to buy any game at full price at that amount.

But the really lousy part of it is that is going to destroy some Canadian stores I've been a customer of for years, in some cases decades.  The Switch was a big seller for them and now it's being followed up with a ridiculous price hike.  In the US Donkey Kong is 10 bucks more than a normal Switch game.  In Canada it's 20.  I don't think I've ever seen game prices increase by such a large margin in Canada.  That's going to turn some people off and the lowest earning owners of the current Switch are going to just get cut out entirely.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Preorders In United States Delayed Due To Tariff Impact

« on: April 08, 2025, 05:08:09 PM »

Nintendo of Canada just announced that Canadian pre-orders are being delayed as well.  Not that I was going to get a Switch 2 at launch anyway but it sure sucks that our country, for which the tariffs do not apply, is also having its pre-order delayed.

So does the price go up for us too?  It's already $700 for the Mario Kart bundle!  I see pre-orders for games that are $100.  They go even higher and they might as well not release the damn thing in Canada.

I feel for Canada after all that Canada has done in the semi recent fires in LA is being punished by a man who has no clue what he is doing and is taking account emotions and how he was wrong to affect the US allies. 

In  the past gens were the prices of games lower or higher than US prices Ian?

Prices were usually higher but the USD has been more valuable than the CAD most of my life.  During the Wii years the two dollars were about par and the prices were actually identical between the two countries.  But we don't think of the value of our money in comparison to the American dollar.  We think of a buck as a buck, it just doesn't usually go as far in Canada.  The last games I saw with $100 price tags were 16-bit era RPGs.  I remember seeing Phantasy Star games in the Sears Christmas catalog that were $99.99.  There is a psychological element of a game price going into three digits.  You cross a threshold there.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Preorders In United States Delayed Due To Tariff Impact

« on: April 08, 2025, 11:55:28 AM »

Nintendo of Canada just announced that Canadian pre-orders are being delayed as well.  Not that I was going to get a Switch 2 at launch anyway but it sure sucks that our country, for which the tariffs do not apply, is also having its pre-order delayed.

So does the price go up for us too?  It's already $700 for the Mario Kart bundle!  I see pre-orders for games that are $100.  They go even higher and they might as well not release the damn thing in Canada.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Adding Switch 2 Exclusive GameCube Library

« on: April 08, 2025, 11:48:19 AM »

I wish Nintendo would F-Zero another chance simply because we live in a world where Fire Emblem and Xenoblade are big series.  Where Mario Kart 8, a game that couldn't move Wii U systems, is one of the best selling games of all time.  The Switch's success has raised everything up and revealed that Nintendo's consoles didn't underachieve because of the games.  Turns out when everyone buys their system that lots of people will buy first party Nintendo games.  So it's somewhat unfair for them to bury F-Zero and point to its Gamecube sales as a justification for it.  Every Gamecube game had a hard cap on potential sales because the system itself didn't sell to expectations.  F-Zero has skipped the Wii, DS and Switch so it missed out on some of Nintendo's highest selling systems.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Preorders In United States Delayed Due To Tariff Impact

« on: April 07, 2025, 11:53:06 AM »

Won't this also impact the MSRP on Playstation and XBox consoles? Does a company like Microsoft have more influence here or does that even matter?

If these tariffs stay EVERYTHING is going up.  There's a reason the stock market is literally imploding right now.  Nintendo was just the first one to be unlucky and announce a new product literally on the same day the tariffs were announced.  No company is eating an extra 30-50% tax that wasn't on their products before.

Do you think the Switch 1 price will go up?  Nintendo has avoided a price drop the entire time so you figure they already have quite a bit of wiggle room there.  Could their equivalent of a Switch 1 price drop simply be that the price stays the same?  And if it does stay the same while everything else goes up in price I wonder if the Switch 1 will have longer legs than originally expected by being the most affordable option.

Of course I'm also worried about Switch 1 physical game prices.  The tariffs will presumably affect those carts too so will we see a price increase there?  I've got some games I'm keeping an eye on for sales and I wonder if I wait too long they'll instead go up in price or quickly become obscure because the publisher doesn't want to do any more print runs.  Will Switch 1 physical games that are going to be released within the next few months have short print runs and be harder to come by?

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Will you be willing to buy Virtual Game Cards, or would go all digital instead?

« on: April 07, 2025, 02:31:13 AM »

I mostly buy physical but it's to have a copy that will in theory work long term, like if 10 years from now my Switch broke I could still play those games on another system.  I have not been perfect at keeping up on what patches are needed and how crucial they are but I don't have any code in a box games or anything that requires a download to work.

I also own some digital titles.  Some are digital exclusives and some are games I didn't become familiar with until physical copies had become out-of-print and hard to come by.  I also got Tears of the Kingdom digital because my brother bought it physical and I figured having two copies in the family was redundant.

I actually prefer the experience with my digital games because I can swap between them very easily in the menu.  I find it to be kind of a pain to swap carts on the Switch.  I chew my nails so they're always very short and I literally cannot open the little flap to get the cart out.  I keep a broken guitar pick handy specifically to swap carts.  So in that sense a Game Key Card is a waste of time.  It wouldn't be as convenient as a proper digital download but lacks the permanence of a proper physical copy.  It lacks the benefits of either format.

Part of why I support physical games is that their continued existence keeps things honest.  Once we get 100% digital I assume we'll have always-online DRM and games getting removed from our systems, not just the digital store.  They don't want you to "own" the game you bought.  They want the remote off-switch.  In a world where there are current games that you can own copies of they can't quite go that far because there's an alternative.  So I don't want to hasten this bleak future that I figure will eventually arrive in my lifetime.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Preorders In United States Delayed Due To Tariff Impact

« on: April 05, 2025, 01:24:47 PM »

I've been thinking about what Nintendo could do.  Now it is possible that their pre-order delay is more to see what happens.  Trump has been putting tariffs on Canada repeatedly and it tends to follow the cycle where he announces some big tariff and Canada either threatens to retaliate or gives him a call and it goes away in a few days, though usually some new threat comes up a few weeks later.  Vietnam has already been in talks with the US about the 46% tariff so it is possible that it gets negotiated to a lower amount that is more what Nintendo was preparing for and then Nintendo can just continue as they planned.

But if it doesn't the assumption would be that Nintendo has to change the Switch 2 price, so how do they do that without it completely sinking the system?  Now the price is already higher in Europe and Canada where the tariffs are not applicable and the idea seems to be that Nintendo wants price parity across regions.  They may have to abandon that idea and have the US price be higher.  Now they have reportedly been stockpiling Switch 2's in the US in anticipation of this.  So they're not going to get hit by the tariff until the new systems start arriving.  I'm going to regard the existing systems as the core unit.  They can sell these at the existing price point.

So for the new arrivals that will have to sell at a higher price they need to increase the perceived value to American customers and need to do so with something that does not get added to the system until after it arrives in the US.  It would probably have to be something digital.  So it would be software bundles.  Obviously they have one with Mario Kart and I'm sure they were always going to have others as new games came out.  That might not be enough to cover the difference so they need to think of something that will add value.  Perhaps online vouchers for extra games but Nintendo doesn't necessarily want to give away new games.  But the Switch 2 is backwards compatible.  So the solution might be that post-tariff systems are bundles that come with the new Switch 2 first party game of the day and vouchers to download a certain amount of Switch 1 games.  Nintendo should probably not expect to sell as many Switch 1 games after the Switch 2 launch so it seems like the best place to take some of the tariff hit.  And if a person gets some free Switch 1 games with their system maybe they'll want to pay to upgrade to the Switch 2 version.  A free year of online play is also something that could be thrown in, which might also benefit from encouraging people to then pay for online once their trial is up.

Now I don't know how many Switch 2's are already in America.  Ideally they would want to hold on to those and spread out their distribution so they can still give the perception of offering a cheaper core model but the numbers are such that stores don't have that many and most of the Switch 2's in American stores are the more expensive bundles.  And in terms of time, the Switch 1 lasted 8 years but Trump will only be president for 4.  The priority should be surviving in the American market and building up a userbase with the intention of getting the real money from that market in the later half of the system's life, when presumably the tariff situation will have improved.