Topic: So how do we feel about the base price of first party games?

The cost of Switch 2 cartridge production along with tariff costs are being passed to Nintendo customers. I imagine that makes fans less enthusiastic. It certainly makes me less eager to collect physical releases for the platform. Especially if there's a chance these games will be heavily post-patched.

I might be all-digital for Switch 2.

Too early to be sure.

Apparently DK Bananza is $70, so it looks like it will be a case by case basis.

Not particularly happy about MK World being $80 though. Unsure if it's Nintendo being greedy or a result of Trump's tariffs.

@IceClimbers It can be both. I'm going with both.

Kind of don’t like it. I know it’s from inflation and all, but I don’t think I’ll like the trend where game companies charge nearly $100 for a single game. Though, it also seems like the $80 pricing won’t be for ALL games luckily from what reports have said on Bananza’s pricing, but I really hope they don’t charge $80 for all games.

Very greedy. I was already scared for $70 physical and digital games, and this is even worse.

If this game is a success many other publishers will follow suit, especially Rockstar Games. I'm pretty terrified for the future now.

Terrible. But all the prices are terrible (the Switch 2 price for example). There's nothing fair about it. I certainly hope the stuff won't fly off the shelf, since Nintendo thinks they can get away with everything. Sure, I know everthings expensive nowadays. Tarrifs and all that. But sure it could all be a bit less? Nintendo could have taken some of the blow for themselves and still make a big financial splash.

The prices are absolutely insane at the moment.

TOTK was readily available for AU$69 (down from the full retail price of AU$90) at launch. Meanwhile, the Switch 2 version is retailing for $110! As is Mario Party Jamboree!

Success always gets to Nintendo's collective heads.

Individual games for over AU$100 is going to be a hard sell. I would have tolerated these prices for Switch 1 games if they required higher capacity cartridges and the like, but these are bog standard games. There's almost zero chance of most third parties bothering to release their games on physical media if the cartridge costs have increased to such absurd degrees! After 8 years, I naively thought that we'd start to see larger capacity cartridges come down significantly in price.

I dont expect every game to be $80. I think $70 will be the standard. I'm more concerned about the pricing for all these ports. I'll pay $70 for a brand new Nintendo game, but not for a port, even a great port, of a years old game.

As for how I feel about it, I don't care much. Prices rise. Games used to be $40, then $50, then $60. Between inflation and rising development costs, higher prices should be expected, even if international trade wasn't a bit of a mess right now.

Nintendo used to have cheap consoles and expensive games. Now, they have both expensive consoles and even more expensive games. Unless the exclusives are really, really good and/or the physical games are actually physical (none of that game-key card crap for me), I see very little reason to upgrade to Switch 2. I mean, it's not like you'll necessarily get quality/performance improvements to Switch 1 games for free.

This confirms that they should have left Switch as their portable for three more years. There's no need for Switch HD with more expensive SD cards and $80 games. They should have made a home console with a Blu-ray drive and SSD. This design is forcing costly games and passing the price onto the consumer when Blu-ray discs cost only a few dollars to print. It's the N64 all over but without any innovation or powerful graphics.

I have an honest question for everybody losing their minds here: How... honestly, HOW are you still paying full price for video games in the year 2025? Even Nintendo games. Even day one.

There are so many ways to avoid paying full price even on day one - is it laziness or ignorance?

I don't think I've bought any video game for its MSRP in many years.

Obviously I'm not stoked, but it doesn't seem to be 80 dollars for everything (DK is 70, and they seem to be positioning that as a pretty big deal). I almost wonder if the Mario kart price is to try to push people to buying the bundle, but I have no proof for that. Regardless, Mario kart seems to be absolutely massive, so not completely ludicrous imo (but I would understand if others disagree.)

Bad.

Praying that $80 (£75) is only for very select titles because my lord what are they thinking?!
If it was in-line with PS5 and Xbox Series X titles then yeah ok, fair enough but more?!!
It's very surprising coming from a company so family-oriented.

They are gonna likely have a Mario Kart bundle for the life of the system. So it’s always gonna be cheaper that way. Otherwise I suspect this will be a case by case basis with 70 dollars as the base price. And 50-60 as the lower tier price. Still cheaper than gaming in the 90’s. I’m not gonna start flinching at game prices until they hit 100USD for the base game. (Although hopefully I will have grown my salary to keep up with the price.)

Switch 1 with Breath of the Wild cost me £309 (including a retailer discount) on Day 1.

Switch 2 with Mario Kart World would cost me what on Day 1 - £450?

That's a heck of a jump. And it doesn't make me feel good. £400 with MKW I could consider, but unless there's some juicy discounts to be found somewhere, I won't want to buy Day 1.

Probably a good thing for me though. I could do with a good reason to slow the growth of my backlog, and this is it. Feel a bit sad to be dropping out of the cutting edge of the Nintendo scene, but it had to happen someday.

The argument that games used to cost more, relatively, during the SNES-N64-GameCube period, doesn't work for me. Consoles were too expensive for me to feel the cost was justified. And while I can better afford them now, I need them less (less time to play, more backlog to entertain myself with).

I hope this isn't true. 70 I could kinda understand, despite my many issues with it, 80 just kinda proves how stupid the justification for 70 dollar games are. There's no reality Nintendo needs to charge 80 bucks for any game, barring another Labo or something specifically like that.

This sucks... I seriously hope that the games get price cuts later on like PS5 and Series X games do (Like from $70 to $45 to $30), or they rethink the pricing and cut all the games' price before launch or just something to make them cheaper.

But Nintendo won't. They just won't. :/

As it seems like I won't be buying very many new games from now on, I might as well catch up on the backlog.

Nintendo make family games. How many working class parents are going to want to spend out seventy odd quid for every Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda game?

I’m in my 40’s, and have the means to buy most things I want, but I still expect value. I’m not going to take a punt on a slightly different game I don’t normally play, or games I don’t get full value from. I won’t buy the next Splatoon game or a Mario Sports game at these price increases. I’m sure I’ll have fun with the Switch 2, but I won’t be buying as many games any more.