PSA: Mario Kart World is $50 bundled with a Switch 2, but $80 by itself
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Yeah I agree, that is a missing part of the market now. Game Pass and PS Plus can somewhat replicate the rental experience but you’re limited to a set selection and, well, it’s a subscription. Nintendo doesn’t even seem interested in that type of subscription service. At least demos seem to have made a comeback recently.
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The current OLED Switch is currently retailing for $300. Anybody who thought the Switch 2 was going to be less than $400 is kidding themselves.
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Are you kidding me? Valve gets a 30% cut on every game they sell through their store front. If they could get Decks in local Best Buys and Walmarts they would! But I'm not sure they have the name recognition that kids would say I want a Steam Deck. When my daughter tells her classmates that no she doesn't have a Switch, but a Deck, 90% don't know what it is.
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Unless you really love Mario this pricing makes the Steam Deck and clones a lot more attractive.
For example, the Mass Effect trilogy legendary edition was $6 during the last sale.
For example, the Mass Effect trilogy legendary edition was $6 during the last sale.
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araczynski
Ars Scholae Palatinae
fortunately (for me) I was so disappointed with everything that came out for the Switch that I won't even bother looking at the next one.
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I held off on most Switch titles waiting on a Switch 2 to play some of these in higher quality and with better frame rates.
It feels like a slap in the face to find that the teased performance and resolution increases in Switch 1 titles will be artificially limited or otherwise hidden behind extra fees.
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It won't. Nintendo has always understood that the properties are what matter, not the technology. (See their philosophy of Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology).
Breath of the Wild was technologically ages behind the top AAA games on other consoles, but was simply much more fun to play and part of a franchise that fans still love. Despite competition to Pokemon, Pokemon still brings in the sales. So yeah, if you want the most games, Steam Deck is appealing. If you want the franchises that you love, you'll need to buy into the ecosystem.
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I wonder if we will start to see much more varied pricing overall with this Nintendo generation.
As a total coincidence, I found a few of my old Nintendo Power magazines from the early 90s not long ago. Just checked the July 1993 issue, and new game prices varied anywhere from $35 to $70. Or, in 2025 dollars, as much as $166.
Going to $70 generally is no surprise. Mario Kart at $80 feels like bundle bait.
As a total coincidence, I found a few of my old Nintendo Power magazines from the early 90s not long ago. Just checked the July 1993 issue, and new game prices varied anywhere from $35 to $70. Or, in 2025 dollars, as much as $166.
Going to $70 generally is no surprise. Mario Kart at $80 feels like bundle bait.
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I paid $70 for N64 games in the 90s so…
Video games have been pretty inflation-proof over the last 30 years.
The console and accessories have been affected by the post-COVID inflation and probably have tariff expectations built in.
Video games have been pretty inflation-proof over the last 30 years.
The console and accessories have been affected by the post-COVID inflation and probably have tariff expectations built in.
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Just because a game doesn't have realistic graphics doesn't mean they didn't put in lots of development resources into it. I would rather have a game that prioritizes innovative gameplay systems and varied content over dumping resources into making sure the sweat beads look perfect.
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The entire handheld gaming PC market - of which SteamDeck is about 60% - totals 6 million units shipped after three years. The Switch 1 did that in the last six months of last year alone. Steam Deck simply is not a competitor on the same scale.
I also take issue with the claim that games are far cheaper. When people make this argument, they practically always compare MSRP of first party Switch games against sale prices of years old PC games.
Most of the third party titles that are on both Steam and Switch have similar lowest sale prices. As one example, Hogwarts Legacy has a $14.99 ATL on both systems. Hades has gone below $10 on both, etc.
Steam Deck has the advantage of being able to play a number of games that Switch could not. Switch has the advantage of playing Nintendo games that you can only get on PC if you steal them.
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No.
The hardware is more powerful and back-compatible: performance is unlocked by buying the new console. The additional fee is for new features such as a "smartphone-powered note-taking feature" advertised for Zelda. Don’t want the new features? Don't buy them, and simply enjoy Zelda with more fps on Switch 2.
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Mostly Ignorant
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Tears of the Kingdom was made on nearly 10 year old hardware, and it was one of the best and most impressive (including technically innovative) games of 2023. Nintendo is still one of, if not the single best games developer in the world. They know it, and they know people will likely pay for it.
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So I work in the gaming industry. I know this may be an unpopular take, but higher prices have long been needed and it was going to take someone like Nintendo or Sony (or GTA6) leading the way.
There is a reason you guys have been reading about so many layoffs in the gaming industry recently (34k+ reported layoffs and counting since 2022). Revenue is down since 2020 and it is unique to gaming. Books? Streaming? Music? Revenue all up since 2020.
Game prices have literally never been lower in real dollar terms (that is, inflation adjusted) than right now. But It's not like the games are any cheaper to make now. In fact they are far more expensive and take far longer than ever before. Not a good combo when you have shrinking player growth.
The reasons for the shrinking of the industry are numerous: COVID hangover, casual gamers moving to social media like TikTok, Free-to-Play and "Games as a service" keeping pricing expectations low, a 30 year back-catalog for gamers to play with, execs expecting every game to be a Destiny or GTAV that lasts a decade and makes billions, games being rushed and shipped with numerous bugs, the list goes on.
But one of the few ways out is to finally start charging more for games. Why is gaming the one industry that has product pricing go down over decades? Movie tickets, concert tickets, even streaming service prices are up over the last decade or two. Even movie tickets are simply flat when adjusted for inflation all the way back to 1980, while concerts and streaming are above the inflation rate over the last decade. Video games? Down over 50% in real prices since the 80s! Were you guys buying $50 games in the late 2000s? Congrats, those would be $100 today if they just kept up with inflation. Did you buy Mario 3 for NES at launch? It would be $120 today. The pricing is literally harming the industry.
Obligatory disclaimer that not all games are worth those high prices and much of this is self-inflicted. But raising prices is one of the few clear ways back to some sort of stability for the industry.
There is a reason you guys have been reading about so many layoffs in the gaming industry recently (34k+ reported layoffs and counting since 2022). Revenue is down since 2020 and it is unique to gaming. Books? Streaming? Music? Revenue all up since 2020.
Game prices have literally never been lower in real dollar terms (that is, inflation adjusted) than right now. But It's not like the games are any cheaper to make now. In fact they are far more expensive and take far longer than ever before. Not a good combo when you have shrinking player growth.
The reasons for the shrinking of the industry are numerous: COVID hangover, casual gamers moving to social media like TikTok, Free-to-Play and "Games as a service" keeping pricing expectations low, a 30 year back-catalog for gamers to play with, execs expecting every game to be a Destiny or GTAV that lasts a decade and makes billions, games being rushed and shipped with numerous bugs, the list goes on.
But one of the few ways out is to finally start charging more for games. Why is gaming the one industry that has product pricing go down over decades? Movie tickets, concert tickets, even streaming service prices are up over the last decade or two. Even movie tickets are simply flat when adjusted for inflation all the way back to 1980, while concerts and streaming are above the inflation rate over the last decade. Video games? Down over 50% in real prices since the 80s! Were you guys buying $50 games in the late 2000s? Congrats, those would be $100 today if they just kept up with inflation. Did you buy Mario 3 for NES at launch? It would be $120 today. The pricing is literally harming the industry.
Obligatory disclaimer that not all games are worth those high prices and much of this is self-inflicted. But raising prices is one of the few clear ways back to some sort of stability for the industry.
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Crazy is complaining about 70 dollar games in 2025 when we were paying 70 dollars for games when the N64 launched.
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I feel the same. They are one of the very few game developers that I will still purchase a game I am interested in without waiting for reviews. I have owned all of their consoles since the NES released when I was 8 and so far I have rarely been disappointed in my purchases. They still get good-will from me personally as a consumer.
I don't mind this announcement but I understand the opinion of those who do and those opinions are valid.
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There were some expensive games released for the SNES also. I recall that Chrono Trigger and Tactics Ogre both had price tags around or more than $60 back then. But I believe that there were games that had extra ROM and sometimes battery back-ups in the cartridges that sometimes made them cost more.
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You leave out a lot of context which makes it sound like you're crying tears for an aggressively litigious multi-trillion dollar media conglomerate.
1) The TAM is much bigger today than before. Mario Kart Double Dash (GCN) sold something like 5 million copies. According to a recent quarterly report, MK8 Deluxe has easily sold far north of 10 times as many copies. (67 million+ Switch, 8 million+ WiiU) They are making their money back and then some. They are not some poor and starving indie developer with a raw publishing deal.
2) First party Gamecube games cost $50, third party games usually $10 more on accounting for the license fees. Nowadays there's price parity between first and third party releases and Nintendo has innovated an additional $10 surcharge for physical copies.
3) You've forgotten about Playstation Greatest Hits and Nintendo Player's Choice. $50 prices were offset by discounted $20 games later on. Nintendo now gives only comparitively paltry 30% discounts 2 or 3 times a year and it's usually only on the titles which have either sold poorly, reviewed poorly (or both), or games which are already several years old.
If they're sticking with these prices I'm going to stick with PC for good.
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most dont.
just like just go to micro center. most dont have one
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Mostly Ignorant
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Agreed. And you didn't even go into the China issue, where they have cheaper labor than the rest of the world and are making good-to-great games at the same time. That Tencent now effectively owns Ubisoft is just the beginning.
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For me and my family they are often more fun and far more played. I don't personally pay a lot for fancy graphics. I pay for games that I expect to personally enjoy playing a lot - and what makes games fun can differ but I find it is rarely just the visuals. I have been playing video games since the Atari 2600. Honestly I find a fair number of modern games have simpler and more bland gameplay than games from the past.
Everyone is entitled to their preference. I am not interested in paying extra for better "asset creation" and I would prefer to spend my money on games with more thought put into the gameplay experience itself and then thorough testing to deliver the experience the devs intend customers to have. I also prefer that my games are not designed to be stuffed full of microtransactions so that they are more of a sales vehicle for some internal cash-shop than a game. Nintendo tends to do those things better than other developers in my personal opinion and I am willing to pay them for it. Your mileage may vary.
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Iwata took a pay-cut in order to not fire his employees - not to keep costs low for all consumers. Nintendo has almost never been the cheapest game maker. They have often charged premiums and have never sold any of their main consoles at a loss. I feel they have generally been fair with consumers - but they have never been the bargain price option.
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Another insult: They're also apparently charging money for the system feature demo program.
From the same company that brought you a full price reheated Skyward Sword port on Switch when it had been available a week before on the previous console for a fraction of the price and the lazy Super Mario 3D All-Stars cash grab.
Consumers shouldn't act like they're powerless. Don't forget Nintendo backpedalled on the 3DS pricing once it became clear that people weren't biting. The fear here is that too many Nintendo fans are as rabid and weak as any Disney or Nvidia fan and might end up sending the wrong message.
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IMO, they should've applied the PS4->PS5 upgrade model -- if you have the original cart, they grant you the Switch 2 copy with improved graphics and performance at no cost.
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Then just charge more for the games, and have that be the final price that is paid. I would rather the norm be that I pay $100 for a game, know that it will be on physical media (or some other mechanism) with full first sale rights, and know that it will not be a vending machine for micro-transactions and DLC.
Stop making me wonder what the price of the game REALLY is (after all the in-game purchases that are expected), and stop acting as if I am just getting some revocable permission from some far off server to play something I have PURCHASED.
That is where the big disconnect is when people try and argue that games are "cheaper" now. When I payed the equivalent of $120 for Mario 3 at launch, I got just as much good play time from it, and was not paying that on average per game I was playing because I would trade with friends who had different games.
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I would very much agree with this, and it is a great point that it really does make me re-think my original comment.
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Not just that, but the value for time is amazing for most games. How many of us spent $30 on Minecraft and racked up thousands of hours on it.
By and large I've moved away from AAA linear story titles (apart from my beloved Horizon) because $70 for 40 hours of play isn't so hot. One reason why I think Baldurs Gate did so well is it delivered on the playtime in a big way. See also loads of indy games - stardew, factorio, rimworld, and yeah, Minecraft above. You're trading replayability for fancy graphics, but you're getting a load of value in the process.
My feeling is that by and large, the ever-growing digital asset AAA games are going to be forced into AI slop because you have superlinear asset growth and complexity being demanded by players, with no corresponding superlinear increase in price to pay for that. Gamers need to be a bit more realistic about the industry, and about what they can demand, or else they're going to kill off the stuff they like. Too much focus on graphics and not enough on gameplay.
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Or shooting yourself in the foot: will the higher prices compensate for the lost sells? Because inflation isn't in my payslip: at this price I'll buy fewer games, and now I wonder if the Switch 2 is worth buying for the so few games I'll play.
As a result, instead of paying several hundred USD over the years, I may pay zero. Which is smaller (even before inflation).
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Ok boomer.
Super Mario came out in 1995 with an MSRP of $25. Adjusted for inflation that's $75. A lot of Atari 2600 titles in 1978/79 were $35-$40. A $35 game in 1979 is $155 in today's dollars.
I'm 56 and paid those prices in those years.
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Sure, but they don't need to sell Decks to sell games on Steam.
Selling more Decks isn't really They earn just as much commission from games that people buy for the computers that they already own, and since the cost of providing the hardware is offloaded on other vendors, it's even more upside for them.
All they really needed to do with the Deck was to get more people developing for Linux, which seems to have worked out pretty well so far.
There's no need for them to sell lots of Decks. They earn the same commission on sales made to consumers playing games on their computers, and since the cost of supplying the hardware to run those games is offloaded on other vendors, it's even more upside to them.
But again, that's fine, because all the Deck really needed to do was convince more people to program games for Linux, and it seems to have worked out okay for that. I don't have a Deck, and I don't plan on ever owning a handheld PC, but I'm pretty happy with anything that helps me rely on Windows less.
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The problem with that logic is that back then distribution was a lot more expensive and the market much smaller so the profit was much less. Today a title sells far more copies at a far lower (often close to zero) distribution price.
So talking about inflation as a reason for game prices to increase is missing the forest for trees.
That said I'm not saying a higher base price might not be warranted.
However, given that Nintendo games never go down in price - even after years and their sales are barely that at all, it becomes a serious consideration. Tell me what other entertainment wares don't devalue in price as they grow older and newer better options arrive?
All this on top of a frankly ridiculous price for the console itself.
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They largely are:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2/transfer-guide/games-with-free-updates/
The ones that they're charging for generally include additional content or new features.
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I feel the Switch 2 was going to be $399 but tariff talks bumped it up to $449. And would you look at that, it covers the newly announced 10% tariff with $10 to spare.
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I said $80 but some sources say $90. I don't see any justification for $90 games when Xbox and PS5's price level was $70. The Switch was old tech when it came out and the Switch 2 is more of the same built around another Nvidia SOC.
I know their policy has been not to sell consoles at a loss for something like 30 years, but $449? That's Steam Deck territory, only you get discounts on Steam. Valve probably couldn't be happier, a sizable chunk of adults who were considering a Switch 2 will probably look elsewhere.
And Nintendo are pricing themselves out of the kids' market, it's too expensive to drop, lose, or get stolen.
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