ti festi vreji .u'u

Today the Nintendo Switch 2 was announced, and a friend groaned it was unacceptably expensive. In the spirit of the Playstation real prices I did before, here's the real prices of Nintendo consoles, in hours of minimum-wage labour.

N64 (1996) $200 @ $4.25/h 48h

Gameboy Advance (2001) $100 @ $5.15/h 20h

Gamecube (2001) $199 @ $5.15/h 39h

Gameboy Advance SP (2003) $100 @ $5.15/h 20h

Gameboy Micro (2005) $100 @ $5.15/h 20h

DS (2004) $150 @ $5.15/h 30h

DS Lite (2006) $130 @ $5.15/h 26h

Wii (2006) $250 @ $5.15/h 49h

DSi (2008) $170 @ $6.55/h 26h

DSi XL (2009) $190 @ $7.25/h 27h

Wii-U (2012) $299 @ $7.25/h 42h

Wii-U Deluxe (2012) $350 @ $7.25/h 46h

Wii Mini (2013) $99 @ $7.25/h 14h

Switch (2017) $299 @ $7.25/h 42h

Switch Lite (2019) $199 @ $7.25/h 28h

Switch OLED (2021) $350 @ $7.25/h 49h

Switch 2 (2025) $450 @ $7.25/h 63h

There's been a kerfuffle about the high price of the latest Playstation game console. Geoff Keighley came to Sony's defence on Twitter to write: Here are inflation adjusted prices for mainline Playstation consoles since launch:

PS1: $611 (1995)

PS2: $546 (2000)

PS3: $778 (2006)

PS4: $538 (2013)

PS4 Pro: $522 (2016)

PS5: $606 (2020)

PS5 Pro: $699 (2024)

I already wrote about how dollar prices from different eras are a poor measuring stick, with my "burgers per annum" reports. Twitter user PatStaresAt is of a similar mind: United States federal minimum wage by year and console based on how many hours you'd have to work to buy it as the relative price of something. Inflation only matters is wages increased too. [The PS5 price] is only slightly better than the PS3, the most wildly overpriced device Sony ever made.

PS1: 4.24/h at 299 = 70h

PS2: 5.15/h at 299 = 58h

PS3: 5.15/h at 599 = 116h

PS4: 7.25/h at 399 = 55h

PS4 Pro: 7.25/h at 399 = 55h

PS5: 7.25/h at 499 = 68h

PS5 Pro: 7.25/h at 699 = 96h

Adapted from Ron Miller's Advanced Improve Practice Guide. Found at: https://lgbt.church/

Before starting your daily practice routine, read and seriously consider the following:

A. Daily Affirmations

How fortunate I am that in this life I am the one who has been allowed to create beauty with computer.

It is my responsibility to create peace, beauty, and love with computer.

B. I Will Be Kind To Myself

IT IS ONLY COMPUTER

No matter my level of development in computer, how good or bad I think I am, it is only computer and I am a beautiful person.

I will not compare myself with my colleagues. If they do computer beautifully, I will enjoy it and be thankful and proud that I live in fellowship with them.

There will always be someone with more abilities in computer than my own as there will be those with less.

C. Reasons To Computer

To contribute to the world's spiritual growth.

To contribute to my own self-discovery and spiritual growth.

To pay homage to all the great practitioners of computer, past and present, who have added beauty to the world.

D. Rid Yourself Of The Following Reasons For Being A Practitioner of Computer

To create self-esteem

To be "hip"

To manipulate

(this is a follow-up to https://fesyvei.tumblr.com/post/733195854385741824 ) I forgot to include provincial taxes. And I played it loosey-goosey with the income brackets, assuming a flat tax from the federal tax on $100,000/annum. This time I wrote 100+ lines of python to do all the patient arithmetic. It does make a difference, as the expected gross annual income can be less for a city that costs more in a different province (ie $60k becomes $41k in Quebec and $44k in New Brunswick).

Tumblr won't let me do tables in Markdown, Rich Text Editor, nor the raw HTML editor, so here's a list:

City Prov, avg 1bd rent, gross annual income

Vancouver BC, $2872/month, $147k

Burnaby BC, $2647/month, $133k

Toronto ON, $2607/month, $131k

Oakville ON, $2524/month, $125k

Mississauga ON, $2352/month, $116k

Richmond Hill ON, $2326/month, $115k

Markham ON, $2325/month, $115k

Etobicoke ON, $2292/month, $113k

Brampton ON, $2195/month, $107k

Burlington ON, $2189/month, $107k

Victoria BC, $2109/month, $101k

Kelowna ON, $2099/month, $102k

Guelph ON, $2061/month, $100k

Ottawa ON, $2056/month, $99k

Barrie ON, $1918/month, $92k

Kitchener ON, $1915/month, $92k

Waterloo ON, $1909/month, $92k

London ON, $1878/month, $90k

Halifax NS, $1875/month, $99k

Hamilton ON, $1868/month, $89k

Oshawa ON, $1845/month, $88k

Montreal QC, $1808/month, $102k

Calgary AB, $1733/month, $86k

St.Catherines ON, $1685/month, $80k

Niagara Falls ON, $1680/month, $80k

Laval QC, $1601/month, $89k

Abbotsford BC, $1594/month, $75k

Windsor ON, $1545/month, $73k

Quebec City QC, $1288/month, $70k

Edmonton AB, $1284/month, $63k

Winnipeg MB, $1282/month, $64k

Red Deer AB, $1249/month, $61k

Fort MacMurry AB, $1226/month, $60k

Regina SK, $1191/month, $59k

A national Canadian newspaper posed the question "is $100k annual salary enough to live comfortably?" and as per Betteridge's Law Of Headlines and as per the "upsetting readers increases profit" rule, the answer they probably insist is "no." I can't tell because they're paywalled and they stopped making print newspapers a long time ago. I have a hypothesis that the author is a stereotypical Toronto inhabitant that believes there is no Canada outside that megacity, so I wonder: is $100k enough OUTSIDE of Toronto?

I'm going to use two tools here: the rule-of-thumb that a person shouldn't spend more than 1/3rd of their income on housing, and the national rent report from the company that ate most of the nation's apartment want-ads. Also, I want to count take-home income after taxes, so I'm using Canada Revenue's broad-strokes rule for tax brackets, so the rent is paid from net income not gross.

$100k annual income becomes $82,250 after federal taxes. That's $6,854.17 per month. 1/3rd of that, which is what the rule-of-thumb tells us to expect to pay for housing, is $2,284.72. That's enough to get a 1-person apartment in Etobicoke or Guelph, but not Toronto nor Vancouver.

We can invert the ratio of rule-of-thumb rent to annual income, and it ends up being 43.769x -- we can use this to figure out what the rule-of-thumb income is for each of the cities listed in the national rent report.

Vancouver, BC $130,256.66

Burnaby, BC $118,176.41

Toronto, ON $114,412.27

Oakville, ON $109,510.14

Mississauga, ON $103,207.40

Markham, ON $101,719.25

Richmond Hill, ON $100,581.25

Etobicoke, ON $99,662.10

Guelph, ON $97,079.73

Victoria, BC $92,834.13

Ottawa, ON $89,945.38

Hamilton, ON $82,329.56 ("I have Toronto tastes but Hamilton income" is a local joke.)

Halifax, NS $81,935.64

Montréal, QC $78,083.97

Calgary, AB $75,720.44

Windsor, ON $66,922.86 (aka suburb of Detroit)

Edmonton, AB $55,980.60

Winnipeg, MB $53,485.77

Québec City, QC $53,223.15 (seulement si vous parlez français)

Saskatoon, SK $46,832.87

This is only accounting for rent; a nit-picker will point out cost of groceries and heating is different in each city, and a savvy & resilient person could do better than the average for renting an apartment. It's a nifty list, meant to give an idea what you're expected to earn at at a job in each city.

"We recommend you stop saying no to us."