Question for my Canadian friends. Are the increases from US$ to CA$ consistent with cost of living and other costs or is this specific to Nintendo products?
All my life the general trend is that Canadian MSRPs are higher than the US. Videogames have actually been better at matching the USD than other products. During the Wii years the two currencies were about even and our game prices matched. It was during the time that games increased in the US from $50 to $60 but for us prices went down to $60.
Video Games Plus is a Canadian website I often buy games from and they recently opened pre-orders for some games that are on both the Switch 1 and 2, like the new Rune Factory and Story of Seasons. The Switch 2 versions are $70 USD and $100 CAD. Now their policy is that if you pre-order at a lower price they'll stick to that price if the price increases. Do they know the true MSRP or are just predicting high so they don't have to take a hit if they guessed too wrong? On their social media accounts there is, as expected, some outrage from customers, though not really towards the store itself since it isn't their fault. But it presents an interesting situation. The Switch 1 versions are the typical price, $20 CAD cheaper than the Switch 2 ones. So unless the Switch 1 version has serious performance issues, why would you get the Switch 2 version? A $20 increase better result in a much better version. Usually when you have games appearing across two generations at once there isn't a major cost difference between the two, if any at all. I think I paid the same price for the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild.
Oh and all my favourite stores that sell physical games might have just been ruined by the price hike. Physical games are going to die eventually so it was inevitable but you figured it would be a slow process not an overnight change.