Yikes. I want a Switch 2, but at that price I can't justify getting it at launch due to real world obligations.

Also, how can they justify charging $80 for Mario Kart World? I am sure it will be good, but $80 for any game is nuts.

It gets even worse when you find out that $80 is for the Digital edition. The physical edition is $90. -_-

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mario-Kart-World-U-S-Version/15940407280

Or $80.

I REALLY don't like the sounds of a "Japan Only" system. I know the Yen is very weak but this will cause problems in the future. I hope it's not a hardware lock and especially hope there aren't games released only for Japan Only systems. If Nintendo was smart, they will sell 20,000 Yen upgrades for Japan Only systems to unlock Multi-Language operation by flashing the operating system (and adjusts the pricing downwards as Yen improves in strength).

I don't like $80 price for games but $80 in 2025 is $59.52 in 2015 and $48.24 in 2005 so it's not unexpected. Inflation marches on....

Console pricing is way above inflation but who knows whether it's because they're being forced by outside factors or if they're trying to close the gap between what people will pay to get it day one and the sales price to cut out resellers.

Interesting. People were posting links to $90 Mario Karts yesterday. Kotaku even referenced it. Guess it was a price error.

https://kotaku.com/switch-2-mario-kart-world-physical-game-tariffs-prices-1851774317

Yeah when it comes to game prices, gamers have to realize that we've been insanely lucky the last few decades that game prices haven't gone up the same way lots of other prices have over the years.  With video game development cost rising way more during this same time, it was only a matter time before prices went up.

If you really want to get wild, Mario Kart 64 cost $60 back in 97, which is the equivalent to $120 today.  This is why renting was a huge thing back in the 90's, with even your local grocery store having a wide selection of games to rent.  It's funny to think how Playstation 1 games costing only $40 was considered a big deal since it was cheaper then N64, but even $40 back in the mid to late 90's is the equivalent to $80 today, the exact price Mario Kart World is.

For people complaining that gaming is becoming a rich persons hobby, it's always been that way.  Seriously, this is why the average person owns less than 10 games total on most systems.  Hell even Nintendo's handhelds where the system and games cost less, only had attachment rates of 5-6 games per owner.

Throughout the day I kept thinking about the price increase and I was getting rather worked up about it.  The console price isn't as big of a deal because it's a one-time purchase.  The game prices are far worse.  In Canada we'll likely see $100 games.  What's irritating is that Nintendo sold Tears of the Kingdom for $70 so my assumption was that that was where we were going.  But now we're jumping to $80?  It feels like they skipped a step.

Now I practically never pay full price for a game.  I'm constantly keeping my eye on Deku Deals and I don't necessarily play new games when they first come out.  But first party games don't usually go on sale and as a result I have a more third party heavy collection.  That happened sub-consciously.  I realize now that the only first party games I get are a few major hitters like Zelda and Pokemon.  Everything else falls into a "eh, someday" list that waits for an unlikely sale or landing a used copy.

Nintendo never cut the Switch price and their games never go on sale.  But that's only because they keep selling.  They overpriced the 3DS and sales were not what they wanted so they cut the price and did the Ambassador program for the early adopters.  I have seen games like Everybody 1-2-Switch get marked down in price, because it didn't sell.  I doubt this is going to sell as well as the Switch 1 at this price point so in that sense Nintendo may be essentially forced to have sales or price drops.

Now the question is, what is Nintendo's true motivation here?  They're increasing by quite a lot, more than what was predicted.  Are they being greedy or is this all just baking potential tariffs into the price?  I assume Nintendo set the prices anticipating tariffs.  If they didn't they could end up in a situation where they would either have to take a loss or change the MSRP between now and launch, and they would obviously not want to do either.  If it's partially because of tariffs then Nintendo isn't actually selling at the price they really want.  So their motivation for a price cut might change.  Tariffs could change, the manufacturing cost of the system could decrease.  With the Switch Nintendo was not interested in passing any savings to the customer but it's different if they are charging more than they want because they feel they have to.  If Nintendo themselves thinks the price is too high then they'll be looking for a chance to move it to the price point they want.

Regardless, they'll sell the launch allocations.  We'll see if things get sluggish after that.  It's expensive enough that I suspect a good portion of the Switch customer base might not be able to afford it at all and that will affect sales.

“Lucky” is not the word I’d use to describe what’s happening here. While game prices haven’t increased at the same pace as living expenses, publishers have benefited over the decades from a boom in user growth with higher attach rates. Then, the most predictable thing happened: user growth slowed (because infinite growth doesn’t exist) while development expenses exploded yet most companies never planned for any of this. Publishers aren't eating that cost; it always gets passed to consumers one way or another. We all understand this part, right? And none of this accounts for the egregious discrepancy between executive team compensation and like, a developer’s salary.

From the consumer side, wages have stagnated while spending power has lowered. Everything (e.g. utilities, groceries, rent etc.) has far outpaced inflation, just being alive costs more. And not for nothing, the inflation argument uses national averages so it doesn’t account for regional differences in wages and cost of living.

Publishers can set the price to whatever they want. When people can’t afford that price, no one benefits. Anecdotally, I rarely buy games at full price due to my LOL gaming habits. Still, I get why people are mad about this because it isn't just about me, and it reaches way farther than video games. I don't think it's healthy to live in a world as a wage slave where you don't get to unwind and relax.

That said, gaming has not always been “a rich person’s hobby”. You have Neo-dodge a lot of things to get there.

Those are part of it, I’m sure, though I imagine there’s pressure (or at least gently nudging) from third parties. Most publishers are not managed as well as Nintendo is which has been warning the industry about rising development costs and the challenges meeting deadlines as games become more complex yet everyone told Satoru Iwata to STFU at GDC 2005. Despite having among the highest wages, retention rates, and employee satisfaction in Japan, Nintendo is still in a great position to absorb extra expenses. Beyond why-would-it-do-that (because LOL-capitalism), third parties are in greater need to hike game prices except it’d be really hard to do that if Mario Kart World is sitting there at $60.

We can make the argument that hey, maybe your company shouldn’t exist if you’re that shit at managing your own business, but it isn’t helping anything for Nintendo to view them that way.

I'm thinking of how with a few tweaks Nintendo could have gotten out of this with a lot less of the conversation being about the price.

Tears of the Kingdom was $70 and was promoted as a special premium price for a premium game.  I can't recall if any other Switch games had this price point.  In a way Nintendo flubbed easing us into a price increase by not doing this more.  But regardless you could say that the Switch 1 has a $60 normal price and $70 premium price.  From there the Switch 2 is a $10 increase to $70/80.  DK uses the normal price point and Mario Kart the premium.

A big problem with the optics of this is that Mario Kart 8 is $60.  It wasn't a $70 Switch game so the price increase comes across as $20.  Nintendo has not established Mario Kart as a "premium" brand.  This also being the most showcased game makes it look like $80 is the typical price point.  Ideally Nintendo should want us to think $70 is.

A better strategy could have been to have Mario Kart be $70 and then save the $80 premium pricing for the next Zelda or Mario platformer.  A lot of the Switch 2 Version games are $80.  Those too should start at $70.  Establish $70 as the "normal" price for the launch, then introduce $80 as the premium and slowly have more and more games release at the premium price point until it is essentially expected.

And the Welcome Tour game should be FREE.  This makes the whole thing look like Nintendo is gouging us.  $450 system, $80 game, pay for online, pay for better framerates on Switch 2 games, pay for more expensive SD cards, pay for the damn tutorial!  It adds up.  I feel like with a few tweaks like this the whole thing could have come across as an expected increase as opposed to a shocking one, but with Nintendo ultimately ending up with the same price point in the long run.  They could have effectively tricked us into the same thing by 2026.  Even Mario Kart could have made up the difference with DLC, which it will probably have anyway.

I am gonna be careful what I say because I don't want to get in trouble for political posts, but it's because of the massive import taxes the current administration wants to impose. The hardware is manufactured in Vietnam, which will now have a 46% tax Nintendo has to pay. Switch games are manufactured in Japan, another 24% tax. Switch game cases are made in Mexico, another 25% tax. The economy is already suffering from them, and this is likely why Switch 2 prices are so high

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.

Maybe the word rich was too extreme, but it's always been a hobby the average person finds too expensive to buy large amounts of games for.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html

The average attachment ratio Nintendo systems

Home Consoles

NES - 8-9 games
SNES - 7-8 games
N64 - 6-7 games
Gamecube - 9-10 games
Wii - 9-10 games
Wii U - 7-8 games

Handheld Consoles

Gameboy - 4-5 games
Gameboy Advance - 4-5 games
Nintendo DS - 6-7 games
Nintendo 3DS - 5-6 games

Hybrid

Switch - 9-10 games


The average consumer of Nintendo consoles has never bought more than 10 games on a system.  When you realize most of Nintendo's systems last for 5-6 years, that means on average most people who buy Nintendo consoles are only buying about 1-2 games a year.  Even the handheld consoles that had cheaper prices to be more appealing to kids, only had parents buying a handful of games for them.

Actually when you realize that the more expensive Nintendo systems have had higher attachment rates then the less expensive, it's no surprise they feel they can get away with raising the prices on Switch 2 games.  Remember how back in 2017 a lot of people thought the Switch price tag would be too expensive to appeal to their traditional handheld audience.  There were some back then that said because the Wii U failed, but the 3DS did good, there was no guarantee the Switch would appeal to the 3DS userbase because of the increase in pricing. 

I remember back then people saying the Pokemon audience might not be willing to go from paying $40 for the 3DS titles, to now $60 for the Switch games.  The price jump between the DS to 3DS Pokemon games was no where near that extreme, that might scare away a lot of parents.  And yet Pokemon Sword and Shield went on to sell 26 million units at $60, which is 10 million more than X/Y sold on the 3DS at $40.

So technically you could make the same point with Mario Kart.  Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold close to 70 million copies and Mario Kart World is looking to be a massive improvement with 24 character races and being turned into an open world experience as well.  They're offering a Mario Kart experience that has never been done before, and if the majority of their audience before the Switch was willing to go from paying $40 for 3DS games to $60 Switch games, they want to see if they can get away with jumping another $20 for a major title like this.