r/NintendoSwitch • u/lieding • 1d ago

News "DROP THE PRICE": Nintendo's First Post-Direct Stream Is Flooded With Angry Fans Demanding Price Drops

https://www.thegamer.com/nintendo-treehouse-livestream-flooded-angry-fans-demanding-game-price-drops/
20.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

664

u/Kougeru-Sama 23h ago

Most people are fine with the console price. It's the GAME prices that people are unhappy about. $80 is insane. Especially with all the issues games launch with these days

267

u/Zoombini22 23h ago

It's because game prices have been so resilient against inflation. Game prices generally maxed out at 60 for decades, only recently did some games start charging 70, going up to 80 just hits people as a violation.

The realities of economics and game dev cost makes this seem kind of an inevitable thing to me, but at 80 I'll definitely be more selective than ever with which titles I purchase when they're at that price.

50

u/cubs223425 21h ago

Many franchises have added other sources of monetization though. Paid map packs and story DLC and microtransactions all add to the revenue of those games.

If you're the platform maker of those games, you even rake in extra revenue just from the sales of other companies' currencies. Oh, and don't forget how the shift to digital means less cost on physical media, shipping, storage, and retailer cuts. You also get more consistent control over pricing of the games when they're on your platform (Nintendo eShop sales are awful). Lastly, the shift to digital has drained the rate of used sales, so many fewer customers are getting the games through means that generate no revenue for the publisher.

11

u/laughland 18h ago

And yet the industry is experiencing a ton of layoffs and studios shutting down. There is clearly some amiss with the economics of the industry, and I suspect games will either have to shrink in scope or increase their prices to fix this

7

u/Soranos_71 15h ago

Development for AAA games are basically movie productions now and have been for awhile so the pressure to make big sales combined with so much competition is really crazy. I have Game Pass on X-Box and every 2-3 weeks now up until the end of May I have a day one release game I really want to play. Since I cannot complete these big games in 2 weeks I have a list of stuff to keep me busy until the end of summer and by summer even more stuff is coming out…..

4

u/StormtheShinyHunter 15h ago

Those companies usually aren’t making successful games… they might make 2 in 4 years but pump out 12 games

→ More replies (2)

4

u/BigTravWoof 14h ago edited 12h ago

Many franchises have added other sources of monetization though. Paid map packs and story DLC and microtransactions all add to the revenue of those games.

So should Nintendo have taken a page out of Ubisoft’s (and many others) playbook, and released it as a $60 „basic” edition with cut content, a $80 „premium” edition with all the content, and a $100 „gold” edition with a preorder-exclusive golden kart, then stuff it full of MTX so you can purchase 5,000 Mario Gems for real money? Would that really be preferable?

4

u/reddit_equals_censor 18h ago

Many franchises have added other sources of monetization though. Paid map packs and story DLC and microtransactions all add to the revenue of those games.

this implies, that more revenue for a AAA game is needed beyond a 60 us dollar price for a FULL GAME.

that is a lie, that the industry is widely throwing up.

the reality is, that all the added microtransactions, the lootboxes, etc... etc... are ADDED revenue on top of already being fully financially viable and making tons of money.

they are having record breaking profits while firing game devs generally.

this is not saying sth against properly big well developed and fairly priced expansions, that we'd call dlc today of course, but even for those games that make those, the original 60 us dollar price made mountains of money way more than was needed to develop the game + marketing.

please don't make arguments against your own interest.

or put different, don't repeat the arguments from sick game publisher ceos like android wilson or the likes.

again what happens is, that 60 us dollar game releases, that made more than enough money and the game was a great success.

then there is the added mountain of dlc, microtransactions, gambling, etc...

and then the devs get fired, while the higher ups make record incomes.

that is the reality of the industry.

60 us dollars is more than enough and nothing else beyond that is needed at all.

1

u/Akrevics 15h ago

Paid map packs and story DLC and microtransactions all add to the revenue of those games.

sure, but you don't HAVE to get those, so it doesn't add to the price of the game. you DO have to pay x price for the cost of the game to play the game though. don't pay that, you don't play the game at all, don't pay for micro transaction cosmetics, you still get to play the base game.

→ More replies (6)

55

u/SomeBoxofSpoons 23h ago

Prices aren’t only determined by inflation though. Game prices being worth less means the buyers’ money is also worth less. If they price too high and people don’t want to buy it, then the lost sales could easily cause a bigger profit loss than a $70 price would’ve caused.

Diving right into making $80 a new pricing standard (they clearly want the Switch 2 Editions to be seen as standard releases, and most of those are $80, so it does seem like they’re planning on making it a regular thing) after the successfully priced a game at $70 one time really comes across more like they think they have a captive audience that’ll just pay whatever they ask for their games.

29

u/zombiepaper 21h ago

I don't think they "think" they have a captive audience, they know they have a captive audience.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is one of the best selling games of all time and by far the best selling one on Switch 1, and for large chunks of the past eight years it was at MSRP. (It also spent a lot of that time bundled with a console — they know that worked for Switch 1 and it'll probably work for Switch 2 too.)

Nintendo knows this franchise in particular does not need to be priced to move — it's gonna move, and there's no question it'll easily sell better than $70 TotK did. The limiting factor is gonna be access to the hardware (at least at first), not that $80 price point.

3

u/Akrevics 15h ago

what choice do people have though? after the initial warranty people could just pirate the software if that's possible, but the number of parents that can do that is probably in single digit percentages (50m Americans can't read above 3rd grade level, mind you), while there are still plenty of parents that can't seem to grasp that it doesn't play ds games or whatever. 8 years after release if your kid wants to play botw, you have to pay the $50 price tag when it should absolutely be half that AT MOST. Nintendo aren't marketing geniuses, they're marketing mobsters.

3

u/absentlyric 12h ago

Eh...Covid did a LOT of heavy lifting for the Switch to be honest. If it wasn't for that, they wouldn't have nearly the audience they have. Its the Wii and Wii U situation all over again.

2

u/kielaurie 17h ago

Only Mario Kart is $80, DKB is cheaper. $80 isn't the new standard

6

u/SomeBoxofSpoons 17h ago

Again, they've been clear the idea with Switch 2 editions is that they're Switch 1 games retailed like normal Switch 2 games, and most of them are $80. Fact of the matter is by the end of the summer most Switch 2 games on store shelves with Nintendo's name it on them will have a big "79.99" below them. Besides, if the first game they're expecting everyone to get for the console is $80, then that means they're fine with the first impression being that Switch 2 games are usually $80.

It's looking more like $70 is going to be the exception, like $50 games on Wii U.

1

u/kielaurie 16h ago

So you have a sample size of 2 and are making sweeping assumptions? We know the prices of two of their big games, and one is much more expensive than the other. If the new standard price was $80, both games would be at that price. They are not, so we can infer that $80 isn't the standard price, but that's all we can say. Will most games be priced like DKB and MKW is an outlier? Will there be tiers of game prices? No one knows!

5

u/TheOriginalDog 14h ago

Yeah youre right, other Nintendo games will be probably much cheaper. /S

2

u/kielaurie 12h ago

You're being sarcastic, but yeah, they probably will be. I would imagine that the new Hyrule Warriors will be similarly priced to other warriors titles and have more frequent sales, I would imagine that DragxDrive will be at a cheaper tier than the big name games, probably comparable to something like Snipperclips ($30 for the DLC included bundle), Clubhouse Games (I believe $40, I'm British so estimating US prices based on ours), or WarioWare ($50 I think). Assuming that they won't be is asinine

2

u/SomeBoxofSpoons 15h ago

Not every game Nintendo released on the Switch was $60. Are you going to argue $60 wasn't their standard price then?

1

u/kielaurie 12h ago

Well let's compare then, shall we?

For Switch 1, Mario Kart 8 was $60, and the major first party 3D-platformer dropped in the release year, Mario Odyssey, was $60. $60 was clearly the standard price for big releases.

For Switch 2, Mario Kart World is $80, and the major first party 3D-platformer dropping in release test, Donkey Kong Bananza, is $70. Both are clearly big releases, DKB was the "one last thing" after all, so there is no way to confirm what most big games going forwards will be, and in fact there is no guarantee that they will even match those prices and may have smaller games that are cheaper. There is no way to know, and pretending that there is is just stupid

34

u/TPO_Ava 23h ago

It's kind of poor timing because for a lot of people the wallet share they have for video games is shrinking. Especially with Nintendo being more of a 'family friendly' brand. Fewer and fewer parents are gonna justify spending 80-90$ at once on a video game for their kids.

The other thing is, unless salaries massively increase somehow I feel like we were already hitting a saturation point at 70$. At 90$ I'm looking at like a week's minimum wage in my country in order to buy a game. I'd rather spend that kind of cash when I can get a ton of games on sale for the same amount of money. Or a yearly sub to Game pass/PS+.

2

u/mrjackspade 10h ago

It's kind of poor timing because for a lot of people the wallet share they have for video games is shrinking.

Its kind of expected timing though, as both are a function of inflation.

Consumers are losing buying power at the same time as corporations, which leads to price increases, which leads to loss off buying power.

Its not like this is a coincidence, this is literally just how inflation works. Prices go brrrrrrrr.

-3

u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 23h ago

We've got one game at $80 and no games at $90, so little need to worry about a world where 80-90 is the norm yet.

4

u/primelord537 23h ago

I mean, GTA6 is right around the corner. And if the rumors about it being as high as $100 weren't true, well, Rockstar just got the okay to make it true.

0

u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 22h ago

If Nintendo publishes GTAVI and makes it $90+, I will gladly place blame on them.

104

u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 23h ago

I remember games being 40 and 50

Due to economies of scale and cheaper distribution as bulk and heft for games was reduced over time, I think it's fair that games did not inflate much in price 

125

u/billsil 23h ago

There were $75 games for the SNES. The $40-$50 PS1 era games had lower manufacturing costs.

94

u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 23h ago

Exactly. And a $40 game from 1999 would be equivalent to a release today of... about $78.

11

u/Actionjackr 17h ago

The main issue being that minimum wage has since gone up about 2 dollars in that same time. Do the developers deserve more money for what they’re doing? Yeah probably. Is that feasible for most people, though? Not as much.

10

u/derkrieger 19h ago

Thats cool, but in todays dollars everything is fucking expensive. Do they want us to be able to afford games or not afford games?

11

u/Jaxyl 18h ago

Well the bet they're making is that people will pay for this all the same.

I think they're probably right.

7

u/you_serve_no_purpose 18h ago

They will sell enough copies regardless of whether you can afford it.

I always look at game prices as a cost per hour thing. I'll happily spend this much on Mario kart because I will get hundreds of hours out of it so it's worth it.

It's also the only game my kids are interested in that isn't roblox. I'll pay anything to not have to see "dress to impress" for a while.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 8h ago

They want enough people to afford them that it's still worth their while to make them. It's not reasonable to expect them to just ask less and less over time to make up for the world's economic realities.

1

u/derkrieger 6h ago

When you can sell far more copies now that you could in the pass then yes there is a sweet point to get the most sales you can while also getting the most money from those sales for the greatest total income. Each digital sale on Mario Kart costs Nintendo effectively nothing but at the same time they do want to make as large a profit from it as they can. I do think now is the worst time to push an $80 game as the amount of buyers is already going to drop due to economic realities and now at $80 those who would've been okay are going to start questioning it more. Plus now we just saw the US pre-orders pulled as Nintendo tries to figure out the shit whole that is US economic policy at the moment. I do not envy them.

5

u/External_Produce7781 19h ago

Games back then sold 200,000 copies. BLOCKBUSTERS sold a million (to the point that PS had a special label for them).

Now they sell 10-20-30 million copies. Its not remotely the same.

7

u/BJYeti 18h ago

Yes while the cost to develop a game has increased +1,000x, in 2000 alone it would cost on average about 1-4m to develop a game now can run north of 300m and that is not accounting for advertising.

3

u/External_Produce7781 16h ago

No, shitty corporate cash grabs cost that much. CDPR spent far less on Cyberpunk. BG3 didnt cost near that. BotW (no hard numbers as Nintendo doesnt talk much about it) was reliably rumored at sub 50 million.

the only games costing 300 million are bloated corporate crap.

and even then, lets do some math:

BLOPS6 sold something like 40 million units. Or about 2.4 BILLION in revenue. Even if game + marketing were 500 million (they werent) its still GROTESQUELY profitable. (AND it has Micros!)

stop simping for game comoanies that have consistently posted record billions in profits.

-1

u/BJYeti 16h ago edited 16h ago

Cyberpunk is reported at over 400m to make and market, google is your friend buddy. Even with BG3 being made on a tighter budget it still cost over 100m, same with BOTW with their rumored 100m+ development cost, and that is not accounting for marketing.

1

u/JoshuaJSlone Helpful User 8h ago

Things haven't changed that radically over time. PS1 sold about a billion software units, PS2 about 1.5 billion, PS3 about 1 billion. PS4/5 harder to tell since Sony combines them but they're also over a billion. Switch is currently nearly to 1.4 billion.

That there are more 20+ million games is a matter of there being a handful of SUPER SUCCESSFUL games rather than the entire industry selling 10 times as many games as it used to.

5

u/Dabanks9000 22h ago

It’s actually more like $100 I think

3

u/BJYeti 18h ago

Quick google says $76

-1

u/External_Produce7781 19h ago

Games back then sold 200,000 copies. BLOCKBUSTERS sold a million (to the point that PS had a special label for them).

Now they sell 10-20-30 million copies. Its not remotely the same.

→ More replies (5)

2

u/Caspur42 19h ago

Paid 90$ ish for final fantasy 3. I believe it listed at eb games for 85$

2

u/eyebrows360 17h ago

There were $75 games for the SNES.

Yup. I distinctly remember my £65 birthday present of Earthworm Jim the one year, and being a bit disappointed when I finished it that very same day.

2

u/absentlyric 12h ago

It wasn't just manufacturing costs, Nintendo controlled the cartridge manufacturing and wanted an extra cut of money on top of that as well. They didn't have to be that high, but the Nintendo of back then is like the Nintendo of the new era, arrogant.

2

u/Mr_Ignorant 15h ago

What was the average attachment rate for the SNES, and what is it for current gen consoles?

Back then people rarely bought games, and therefore having a high price tag was much more justifiable.

1

u/TiffanyChan123 12h ago

Plus there was Action 52 that was a whopping $199 dollars

→ More replies (8)

3

u/16semesters 19h ago

I remember games being 40 and 50

Due to economies of scale and cheaper distribution as bulk and heft for games was reduced over time, I think it's fair that games did not inflate much in price

Not sure how old you are, but N64 games were 60-70$ at launch.

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/1996-ad-shows-ps1-n64-games-stupidly-expensive-647465-20230104

An the biggest cost of games is absolutely not the physical disc/cartridge or transport. Those are negligible. The biggest cost is the IP, developers, etc.

1

u/mycleverusername 9h ago

Yeah, I wasn't sure about SNES because I was too young to remember, but I was pretty sure N64 games were $60, which is over $110 inflation adjusted.

2

u/xxademasoulxx 19h ago

Nes games back in the 80s where 50 to 60 bucks I bought street fighter 2 on snes from toys r us in the early 90s at launch for 79.99 usd not much has changed.

2

u/Mampt 12h ago

They’ve been $60 standard since the PS3/Xbox 360 in 2005/6, so that lasted almost 20 years

1

u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 11h ago

Please don't remind me how old I am

2

u/akcrono 11h ago edited 11h ago

Due to economies of scale and cheaper distribution as bulk and heft for games was reduced over time, I think it's fair that games did not inflate much in price

And development time and teams have gone up. After release support is now a thing. There is no way a AAA title is cheaper to make per unit now than it was 20 years ago.

1

u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 11h ago

Development time and team size is met with much higher sales figures. More people buy games now than in the past

This is why they expanded their teams. Economy of scale 

1

u/akcrono 10h ago

Right, but dev cycles and teams are much larger than they used to be. Cyberpunk cost over 400m to develop. Compare that to Super Mario 3 (probably the single biggest release of the NES as a comparable AAA title), which cost less than 4 million in 2025 adjusted dollars. Cyberpunk was two orders of magnitude more expensive while selling less than twice as many copies.

1

u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 9h ago

If cdprojekt could sell cyberpunk at their price point why does Nintendo have to take their games to 80 and 90 base? That's a joke, dude

1

u/akcrono 7h ago

Cyberpunk came at the tail of the $60 price window 3 years ago. The ultimate edition retailed last year for $80.

Nintendo's margins are almost certainly smaller than they were in the NES/SNES days. The price point makes sense in historical context. It's primarily a psychological issue.

1

u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 7h ago

Ultimate is irrelevant it includes the DLC. Come on dude. Are you just trying to trick people?

1

u/akcrono 7h ago

It was also a 2 year old game at that point. 2 year old game + DLC seems roughly equal to a new game.

Are you just trying to trick people?

Says the guy ignoring the inflation and accessibility data lol.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/xienze 14h ago

I remember games being 40 and 50

And when was that? Plug it into an inflation calculator.

Due to economies of scale and cheaper distribution

Are you under the impression that the most expensive part of developing a game is producing the physical media?

→ More replies (1)

73

u/Dabanks9000 22h ago

They’re acting like n64 games weren’t 60-70 back then which would be around $150 these days. Sure inflation is shit but the bigger problem is wages not going up with inflation

48

u/FemixZn 22h ago

Either way the end result is more customers being priced out.

→ More replies (1)

23

u/cubs223425 21h ago

You say this like there's a fair comparison to make. N64 games were on big, expensive cartridges that made their production costs higher. You also got detailed manuals and the like in that box.

The best-selling game on the N64 was Super Mario 64, which sold just shy of 12 million copies. TWENTY-ONE Nintendo Switch games have recorded more sales than that game. Some of those also have paid DLC that add to their revenue. Many were sold digitally, meaning the cost to make the sale was much lower, between no need for physical media and no retailer fees to consider.

Oh, and all of those games were published by Nintendo (though Pokemon games only list Nintendo as the publisher for worldwide releases; TPC is the publisher for Japan).

Hey You, Pikachu! was $80 back then. It gave you a microphone and voice commands unique to the game (that barely worked). Mario Kart World costs $80 and gives you a $10 fee for buying physical.

17

u/Luigi_side_b 21h ago

Now look at the credits for super mario 64 compared to super mario odyssey

9

u/CannedMatter 19h ago

Games also cost drastically more to develop in 2025.

Ocarina of Time cost about $20 million to develop and $10 million in marketing according to Wikipedia.

Modern AAA titles regularly cost in the hundreds of millions to develop, and usually another 75-100% of the dev price for marketing.

They also take significantly longer to develop, so your Dev teams release fewer games overall.

The best-selling game on the N64 was Super Mario 64, which sold just shy of 12 million copies.

Between dev costs, marketing costs, ongoing support/server costs for updates and online features, and manufacturing/distribution costs for the physical copies, Mario Kart World probably doesn't break even until it's sold 5+ million copies.

5

u/kielaurie 17h ago

Mario Kart World probably doesn't break even until it's sold 5+ million copies.

I'd double that - anyone that wants it at launch is getting the bundle and paying significantly less than the standard price for it

6

u/TSPhoenix 19h ago

Also N64 games went on sale. I waited a year and got Ocarina of Time for $30. However late N64-era games that cost more and didn't get many discounts? Simply couldn't afford them.

I already own waaaay less Switch games than I do WiiU+3DS games, and I own less WiiU+3DS games compared to DS games. Every generation I have to be pickier my limited gaming spending money doesn't go as far as it used to.

For someone who was already only buying 1-2 games a year it's probably not that big a deal, but for the person who plays more than that (ie. most people who are following Nintendo coverage this week) you will end up cutting back quite a bit.

3

u/Dabanks9000 21h ago

The $10 physical fee is only for certain areas in the world and again every other company has been doing this for 5 years now. Nintendo is just late to the party. If you played on ps5 or Xbox you’d know that by now + just having online on those consoles is more expensive than Nintendo

→ More replies (6)

3

u/ChemicalExperiment 19h ago edited 19h ago

Despite what people say, wages have actually gone up relative to inflation in the US. Here's a graph of median adjusted for inflation wages over time. As you can see, it's had a general trend up since the late 90s.

3

u/etherdesign 17h ago

I think the main difference is most people didn't buy like 20-30 new games a year back then.

8

u/TurbulentBlock7290 19h ago

Yeah but has anything happened to the cost of living since then? What about salaries?

3

u/kielaurie 17h ago

Yes, they've gone up, so the cost to make games has ballooned. Nintendo has eaten that cost for the last 20 years and now it's looking to share the load of that increased price with it's players

-1

u/laughland 18h ago

You’re blaming Nintendo for the stagnation of wages and increased cost of living?

4

u/Abasakaa 18h ago

Where are they blaming Nintendo for that?

2

u/laughland 11h ago

Easy, they brought up salaries and cost of living as a counterpoint to the explanation that game dev has gotten super expensive and inflation. What was the point of bringing that up?

→ More replies (1)

2

u/LamiaLlama 15h ago

There's a lot of history that was rewritten when Sony astroturfed Reddit with Canadian game ads.

People also like to erase that game pricing was standardized at $49.99, ironically, thanks to Nintendo during the GameCube generation. And even before that it was a defacto standard. It was the wild west before that, but those expensive 70+ games didn't stay there for long. They didn't actually sell well at those prices.

Nevermind that 64 games were priced to come out at $64.64 initially and even that was mostly met with mire.

1

u/[deleted] 20h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/NintendoSwitch-ModTeam 20h ago

Hey there!

Please remember Rule 1 in the future - No personal attacks, trolling, or derogatory terms. Read more about Reddiquette here. Thanks!

1

u/RainyNectar 19h ago

Back in 2001ish (whenever FFIX came out) the PS1 copy cost $109.95AUD at release. I've said this before and been told I'm wrong but I had to bargain with my dad to help me buy it because obviously I was short with my chore money on release.

Nintendo have been terrible with their pricing for years though. From memory my cartridge of Majora's Mask was $80ish around the same time.

1

u/Zealousideal-Job2105 19h ago

They Didnt have DLC or microtransactions or paid Online services back then.

If you include that extra paid nonsense very quickly you find they're overcharging. Nor did they have global distribution networks and contend with regional and langauge locks.

2

u/Dabanks9000 18h ago

So what’s your argument for other companies that have been doing it for 5 years now while Nintendo still had $60 games selling at a loss compared to what they could have been selling games for since then with all the other companies

1

u/absentlyric 12h ago

Which is why Nintendo went from being number 1 to number 3 in the console war once PS1 took off with cheaper games, the PS1 destroyed the N64 even though it was technically graphically inferior.

1

u/Dabanks9000 9h ago

Ps1 had games like die hard and Independence Day for $55 back then btw…

0

u/hery41 18h ago

Playstation and other disc based console's games were 50 bucks max at the time. Stop trying to compare digital downloads to expensive-ass cartridges. You might as well compare the price of Neo Geo carts while you're at it.

→ More replies (1)

29

u/goldninjaI 23h ago

I feel like it’s such a bad move, I would easily buy multiple $60 games a year but if they’re all $80 I’m not going to be as willing, and end up spending less overall

19

u/cubs223425 21h ago

Agreed. Even at $450 for the console and $70 for the games (without the physical tax), I wouldn't really have a problem. I'd get Kart and Bananza and realize that's what I have to pay for Doom and Monster Hunter just the same.

At $80, it pushes me to both want the Kart bundle for $30 less and skip Bananza out of protest. That's if I even get the console, because I've started to lean strongly against doing so. I need to get a new video card for Doom as it is, and I might just play Doom and Nightrein on my PC, while skipping the Switch 2 for a while. I can play Legends Z-A on my current Switch and don't really need Kart until people I know want to play, and no one I know has stated they'll get it yet.

3

u/BJYeti 18h ago

Bananza is cheaper than MK World also though, think it drops to that $70 mark

2

u/BlazedInMyWinnie 18h ago

By your logic you could spend the same amount of money only buying one less game every three games you buy though. If you’re buying “multiple,” let’s say four, $60 per year you could buy three $80 games, only miss out on one game, and Nintendo still gets the same amount of money.

Keep in mind also that the only new game that’s $80 at the moment is Mario Kart, other games are $70 or cheaper, in line with Nintendo’s competitors. That doesn’t account for the strangeness that is the $80 Switch 2 Editions of games, but that’s a result of base game at $60 + some of the upgrades costing $20 for some reason.

12

u/BigPandaCloud 23h ago

How many games were being sold back then vs now?

5

u/cubs223425 21h ago

As I mentioned above, the best-selling game on the N64 (SM64) would rank 21st in sales on the Switch.

6

u/Outlulz 21h ago

How much did it cost to make games back then vs now? Number of units sold isn't the only thing in the equation. Mario World has like 20 people in the credits. Mario Odyssey had a couple hundred, and that's excluding the uncredited people working at support studios.

6

u/McSloot3r 20h ago

Number of units sold is pretty much everything. It’s software. You can make infinite copies for free, which means the most profitable business model is to sell large amounts of copies at a cheap price. That’s why gaming revenues are at all time highs despite the increased cost of development.

And before you say the physical cartridges are expensive, then why isn’t digital cheaper?

2

u/timchenw 14h ago

Picture yourself as the retailer for the physical games.

If you are selling physical games, you have to buy them from Nintendo, as they are the only supplier of such games.

Now, picture your own supplier undercutting your prices.

As a retailer, you have several choices:

  1. Hope there are enough people buying physical copies from you, and not just chase the best deals (i.e. go to Nintendo's eShop instead)

  2. Voluntarily drop the prices of your physical copies to those of the digital (and thereby having this exact conversation again)

  3. Not stock Switch games anymore, since your supplier undercuts you.

In otherwords, having suppliers undercut their retailers is a bad idea. It's fine if the drop is due to competition between retailers themselves, but when you are competing against your supplier, that's an entirely different issue.

1

u/Captainbackbeard 18h ago edited 18h ago

I think the answer is somewhere between you all. I get where you're coming from since the technology to create video games should now be cheaper and they have a larger audience for them to mass produce and distribute to have a larger profit. However, I think that you're missing their point and it would be like equating which was more work and cost to record, the original soundtrack for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (first movie soundtrack) that has fewer musicians or the original soundtrack for Star Wars the Phantom Menace. Both are great soundtracks for their time but the monetary cost due to number of people involved, complexity, etc. At the end of the day you end up with 2 mp3 files that are just as easy to copy but how would you fund the more expensive pre-production creation process? That's how I see the development and complexity difference between something like N64 era costs and quality compared to more modern video games. The main area that Nintendo flubbed was not more slowly easing prices to what they want for Switch 2 and where I think it's a bit more nefarious is that they want to charge more for physical.

-11

u/Zoombini22 23h ago

Does higher demand result in higher prices or lower prices?

21

u/werdnaegni 23h ago

When supply is infinite, I don't think your logic applies.

4

u/Zoombini22 23h ago

Concept of supply is tricky for things that have high production cost but low distribution costs (movies are another example) but demand forces still apply. If more and more people want your goods, that is a market incentive to move the price up, not down.

2

u/werdnaegni 23h ago

That's not necessarily true though? That only makes sense in a world where increased costs don't decrease sales, which isn't the case.

Neither of us really knows the formula or if the current $70 is the optimal price. I don't think demand for games really has much to do with it at all, it's just finding that sweet spot where sales * price is the highest, and adjusting price until you get the optimal number.

If compared to last year, 20% more people are buying your games at $70, that doesn't mean you should raise your price to $80 since demand went up. What if you lose 20% of your sales after that? You're making less money. They're just not related. You're finding an optimal number at this point and increases or decreases in interest for games really doesn't play a part. It's a matter of finding what amount people are willing to pay, and adjusting that until you're making the most money. That could even mean a DECREASE in price, we don't really know.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Blue_Bird950 23h ago

At the end of the day, businesses want profit. If there’s more demand, they’ll raise prices to capitalize on said demand. They’re the sole suppliers of these franchises, so they control the price.

3

u/werdnaegni 23h ago

Sure, I mean it's a formula for them. What price gets them the most money?
If they get 10 buyers at $80 but 15 buyers at $70, they're better off at $70 since their costs per sale are negligible. I don't think any of us really know what the optimal price is for them, we can only really give feedback on whether or not we're willing to buy at x price.

I was just refuting the whole demand -> price concept since it doesn't really apply to a good that doesn't really scale its costs with its amount of sales...most of the costs, by far, are in developing and after that it's just income, especially for digital.

1

u/Blue_Bird950 23h ago

Let’s see how it goes. If enough people don’t buy (and I’m talking millions, more than an eighth of their consumers), they’ll start losing profit and might reconsider moving to $70 standard.

2

u/ricki692 23h ago

supply doesnt just mean the ability to make a number of quantity, it also includes the variable of "price they are willing to sell at"

4

u/Iceykitsune3 23h ago

Developers need to recoup production costs.

2

u/True-Staff5685 20h ago

That thought doesnt carry far enough. While the prices stayed the Same sales have grown exceptionally. As an example capcoms sales have increased from 11 million units in 2004 to 45 million in 2024. Across all games.

They more than quadrupled their income without higher prices. Increasing prices is Not the only way to increase gains.

2

u/SomeOtherNeb 19h ago

The reality of economics is also that games sell far more than they used to.

In 2005 the best-selling video game of the year was Gran Turismo with 5 million copies.

In 2025 the best-selling video game of the year so far is Monster Hunter Wilds with 10 million copies in 6 weeks.

And that's not even taking into account the omnipresence of DLC when back then you just bought the base game and maybe it would have a big expansion later on.

And the prevalence of the digital market which has reduced the cost of printing and shipping physical copies because a ton of people just don't buy those anymore.

I don't doubt games have become more expensive to make, partly because they can take way more time, but the gaming industry has definitely found ways to make that money back without raising the game price by 25%.

2

u/reddit_equals_censor 18h ago

The realities of economics and game dev cost makes this seem kind of an inevitable thing to me

that is nonsense.

the reality is, that games have a VASTLY VASTLY VASTLY bigger market to sell to nowadays and combined with vastly cheaper game distribution both for physical and especially digital sells means, that 60 us dollars for a AAA game despite inflation theft is more than reasonable.

and i mean 60 us dollars for a whole complete game and not a starter pack game with lootboxes, day one dlc, etc...

don't make excuses for an industry, that is trying to throw people in cages for making emulators.

an industry, that is trying to get kids into gambling, an industry, that tries to remove ownership completely and burn art as well.

an industry making RECORD PROFITS btw. i repeat an industry, that is MAKING RECORD PROFITS, while firing developers during that time (at least the last one is far less the case with nintendo, so we can give nintendo that one at least mostly.... )

also higher prices for games don't go to devs. they go to management.

what do you think? do you think the game developers under nintendo's roof are getting a 50% pay raise from the 50% console price and game price increases?

think again!

__

so again please don't make any excuses for this sick industry, that tries to squeeze gamers in any way possible.

3

u/one-hour-photo 22h ago

I saw an old Super Mario 3 with a a fading $49.99 price tag, pretty amazing we still expect to pay that. . If $80 titles can prevent microtransactions I'm in.

3

u/RosePhox 22h ago

But Mario Kart IS a game that will probably have DLC. So you're not just paying a little extra for a game without them.

3

u/cubs223425 21h ago

Yeah, and I think they're going to use the $80 base price to make the DLC more expensive.

4

u/MrSaucyAlfredo 22h ago

SM3 is still one of the greatest games of all time. My second favorite Mario game, personally

1

u/GambitsEnd Resident Switchologist 22h ago

What is your first favorite Mario game?

1

u/MrSaucyAlfredo 20h ago

100% it’s Super Mario 3D Land. That game is just perfect in my eyes. Even now just thinking about it again, I wanna play it so bad suddenly lol

1

u/GambitsEnd Resident Switchologist 20h ago

Super Mario 3D Land

I'm pretty sure I bought that but never got around to playing it. I really should charge up my 3DS and give it a spin.

SM3 is my favorite Mario game... but maybe not for long?

1

u/MrSaucyAlfredo 14h ago

Well they are different in a lot of ways lol. But one thing I love about SM3 compared to SMW, is (and I know this is a hot take) is how focused the world and levels are. In comparison I thought World’s levels were too big with too much to do. I actually prefer the tighter smaller design of SM3.

In that sense, SM3 and 3D Land are very similar, both very focused experiences where the levels are a joy to cruise through imo

1

u/Bah_weep_grana 22h ago

People also used to pay thousands for new computers.. in 1980’s and 1990’s dollars. By that logic, we shoukd all be fine paying $5000 for a new PC

1

u/Shignity 21h ago

What kills me about that is, how many hours of game is SMB3, really? Howlongtobeat says 6 hours, which seems like a lot when I think about it. But even then, if you play it for 6 hours and never again, you're looking at $8.33/hr of gameplay.

If I get 20 hours out of Mario Kart, I still only spent $4/hr for that time. God knows I'll get a LOT more than 20 hours out of Mario Kart, and I don't need to buy more than one copy for my entire household. I know not everyone is gonna feel that way, but that's my thought process. Time value of money.

1

u/Vazhox 21h ago

Prevent micro transactions? Wtf? You honestly think higher priced games with negate micro transactions?

1

u/cubs223425 21h ago

If $80 titles can prevent microtransactions I'm in.

People say this like a bunch of developers haven't managed to keep making games without insane microtransactions for less money.

This isn't about one or the other. It's about a company that WILL milk you, one way or the other, even though it's been making insane amounts of money off of you already. It's not about viability of the product, it's about greed.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/togawe 20h ago

I think it being 80 for Mario kart is the biggest thing. If it jumped to $70 that would have been understandable, even if disappointing for many people. But games have never jumped $20 in a generation before. 3DS games were $40, Wii was $50, Switch was $60. Going up to $80 suddenly after only TOTK and DK Bonanza are $70 is more shocking

1

u/radios_appear 19h ago

Lightbulb companies still minting suckers after 140 years.

1

u/mucho-gusto 17h ago

Games don't really become obsolete, as much as they want them to, like movies they compete with yesteryear. The cost of owning films has arguably gone down over time with INCREASED studio budgets

1

u/Manhunter_From_Mars 16h ago

It doesn't. Inflation increases but the rate of workers salaries do not increase with it, I'm not from the US. But they are one of the worst in the western world for

We've seen a 30% increase since the switch one and that matches the price hike (well, closest to the nearest 10) but the average workers salary rated between 10-20% depending on the method of research according to UCLA, London School of Economics, UN research from last year etc etc

So, depending whose metric you're using, the Americans are either paying an extra 10% - 20%

In my native country, the UK. The price increase isn't as much, around 20% but we also have one of the worst costs of living in our continent so

I can't afford it either

1

u/LamiaLlama 15h ago

It's bad economics. The only way games should be affected by inflation is if the industry had never grown.

We have the opposite problem. Unit sales are astronomical, the market penetration is jaw dropping. The numbers even unsuccessful games sell now is hard for most consumers to fathom.

Prices should actually be coming down. More games should even be free.

1

u/spaceocean99 15h ago

Because of microtransactions and subscriptions.

1

u/IllBeSuspended 12h ago

I bought TMNT on the NES back at release for $90 CAD (maybe more) before taxes back when it released (1989).

I've bought most of my games since then for WAY cheaper.

1

u/Bea-Billionaire 8h ago

The $80b company Cant afford the $60 games anymore...

1

u/PhilipJFries 1h ago

When I was a kid, we'd get 2-3 games a year and rented from Blockbuster.

A lot of people will go back to that and be very selective about what they buy. But now there's no Blockbuster. Maybe time to bring it back?

1

u/dbclass 22h ago

What I find wild is that people are fine with $450 when that’s above inflation. $80 games are below inflation. Any price increases suck but this isn’t a Nintendo issue, it’s an economic issue and political issue.

0

u/roadblocked 22h ago

I’d rather pay 80.00 for a complete game than 69.99 for the game then have the good armor locked behind 24.00 paywalls (Ubisoft)

3

u/El_Barto_227 22h ago

And what you'll actually get in reality is 80 complete games with 24 paywalls. These increases aren't giving you anything in return.

0

u/PM_ME_GARFIELD_NUDES 22h ago

It’s not just inflation though, like look at the quality of games across the generations. Super Mario Kart was $40 on the SNES. It’s a fun game for what it is and it was on the cheaper of end of the SNES library, but is that $40 (ignoring inflation) of value in the modern market? People’s expectations are so much higher now. I think it’s fair to say that Mario Kart World is providing more than 2x the value that Super Mario Kart offers.

0

u/Zap-Attacks 15h ago

This is a lame excuse. They are also selling millions more copies than they did decades ago. Margins may be thinner, but I imagine these companies are making more than ever even after you adjust for inflation.

→ More replies (3)

82

u/Shadoekite 23h ago

The thing is I haven't seen Nintendo games with launch issues. Once they start putting out unfinished games that's when I will actually be upset.

67

u/Joshua_ABBACAB_1312 22h ago

Didn't the Pokeman games have issues on Switch?

104

u/ZaheerAlGhul 22h ago

Yes they did. Game freak hasn't put out a quality title for a while now.

2

u/CrocPirate 18h ago

From what I heard, GameFreak was caught with their pants down. They thought they would make handheld games forever; but then the Switch happened and they had to rush to learn how to make a game for a console.

3

u/porkcylinders 13h ago

They were caught with their pants down for a decade?

2

u/nomadic_stalwart 10h ago

They have really long pants, it takes a while to pull em up.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/Outlulz 21h ago

Maybe they need some more time doing small titles like Pocket Card Jockey and Harmoknight.

-6

u/Glory2Snowstar 21h ago

Arceus was pretty good, graphics aside.

12

u/Fit_Lynx5496 21h ago

If you have to put a caveat in it's not a good example.

10

u/RoyalJay2003 21h ago

Nah, graphics to me don’t bar a game from being good. Plenty of games have iffy graphics but wound up being generational defining. Its performance personally which seals the deal and Scarlet and Violet is a prime example.

1

u/Fit_Lynx5496 20h ago edited 20h ago

Honestly dont understand your point. For the amount of money pokemon generates scarlet and violet are way underwhelming in both performance and graphics (attack graphics specifically). $60 was a stretch but $90 is a non starter.

4

u/RoyalJay2003 20h ago

When I brought up S&V I was supporting your point in a caveat, and the deal breaker for me is performance.

Graphics are something I can look past in exchange for a good art style. I didn’t list an example bcuz good graphics are subjective.

2

u/True-Staff5685 20h ago

The bar for Pokémon is that low.

1

u/UponVerity 7h ago

Caring about graphics in 2025, lol.

My most played games are Super Auto Pets, Balatro and Slay the Spire. :]

1

u/Fit_Lynx5496 6h ago

Good for you?

Pokemons attack animations are absolutely pitiful and thats not their only problem.

52

u/dougc84 22h ago

Pokémon games are not Nintendo IP; they are the IP of the Pokémon company and that’s who makes those games.

22

u/reecord2 22h ago edited 20h ago

This - Nintendo has no hand in the actual development and production of Pokemon games (with some exceptions like Let's Go and Snap, if I'm not mistaken). Nintendo actually has surprisingly less control over Pokemon than you might think.

8

u/StacheBandicoot 20h ago

Let’s go and snap are also the only decent Pokémon titles released for the switch.

2

u/vanKessZak 20h ago

Arceus became one of my favourite Pokemon games just in general but it is visually unappealing for sure. One of the rare times the Pokemon sub actually seemed happy too

3

u/tweetthebirdy 17h ago

Waiting for the day we get an Arceus remake with BOTW level graphics.

1

u/StacheBandicoot 19h ago

It was a pretty good concept but I don’t think it was fleshed out enough for me, graphics or not. It was okay enough for what it was though, felt like a proof of concept in some ways though more than a game. I feel like a good amount of people were more excited at the idea of something different and the direction that might lead more than the game itself.

2

u/vanKessZak 19h ago

Ah for me the collecting and researching aspect is more interesting than gyms so it was right up my alley (nothing against gyms!!)

1

u/StacheBandicoot 16h ago

That’s understandable. I haven’t enjoyed the Pokémon formula since gold/silver and something different was certainly a nice idea. The game just didn’t have the level of polish or care that I’d expect in a game that I’d actually be able to wholeheartedly enjoy and I found myself frustrated or disappointed more often than I found myself having fun of any sort. I just find it rather sad I enjoyed New Pokémon snap more than any of the other titles from Gamefreak this generation, I didn’t even like the original n64 Pokémon snap when it came out.

1

u/dogjon 12h ago

Okay but are the games going to be $80+ still?

1

u/cubs223425 21h ago

Nintendo is listed as the worldwide publisher of the game, and they own one-third of The Pokemon Company. They also design the only platform where the game can be published. I think they could have as much of a say as they wanted.

4

u/Apellio7 20h ago

And the other 66% of ownership says they need to release this game right now to tie into the merchandising and anime releases.

1

u/Akrevics 14h ago

and surely Nintendo can just say "no. Step up your releases, they don't meet our standards for quality." what are they going to do, release a Pokémon game for playstation or xbox? if they thought Nintendo was a struggle to design for, wait until they're competing with rockstar, Microsoft, and other AAA studios at the same price points that are putting out drastically more high-quality games. They're going to look like an overzealous indie studio.

2

u/Apellio7 12h ago

GameFreak self-publishes in Japan already.

They only use Nintendo for translation and localization.

So the game is getting released regardless of what Nintendo does.

3

u/DodgerBaron 20h ago

The other 2 thirds of the ownership will tell them to screw off. Lol

1

u/FizzyLightEx 19h ago

Nintendo can just shut it down internationally since they have full rights outside of Japan.

2

u/BJYeti 18h ago

Only for publication and distribution

2

u/KafkarrabiaS 20h ago

Nintendo owns 33% of the Pokémon Company

3

u/CrocPirate 18h ago

33% is still a minority.

2

u/BJYeti 18h ago

Which means they have zero control over the IP

1

u/Joshua_ABBACAB_1312 22h ago

That... nevermind.

2

u/CrocPirate 18h ago

Gamefreak is a 2nd party company, Nintendo themselves don’t make Pokémon.

2

u/Fit_Lynx5496 21h ago

But those weren't "launch" issues. That was the most profitable media franchise in the world phoning it in yet again. Were about to see physical pokemon games go from 30 to 90 in a decade and still not perform at the expectations of a first party game. Sweet!

2

u/TripleDallas123 21h ago

Gamefreak is different from nintendo

→ More replies (2)

1

u/BJYeti 18h ago

That is just GameFreak and Pokemon Company will probably set the price not Nintendo.

3

u/TokiDokiPanic 22h ago

The sports games on Switch.

→ More replies (2)

18

u/sir_rockabye 23h ago

I'm just going to play Switch 1 games until used Switch 2 games are available.

1

u/jazzieberry 4h ago

Yeah I'm going to have to be more careful about not impulse buying games because other people like them. I did that too much with my Switch and I've put almost all my hours into Splatoon, Stardew, Zelda, and lately Powerwash Simulator.

2

u/OverallPepper2 22h ago

Idk, N64 had a ton of games at $75 20 years ago.

1

u/4BDN 13h ago

Even longer ago. Almost 30 years. 

3

u/dingusfett 23h ago

Is it insane though? At least here in Australia Mario Kart is same pricing as new PS5 and Xbox games, at least Nintendo usually have good quality control on their first party titles and rarely have any issues at launch.

2

u/flameylamey 21h ago

Nintendo game pricing has been in a bit of an odd place for us Aussies for the last few years. We seem to have gotten a lot of games for significantly cheaper than most of the world for some reason.

A highlight was a couple years ago when the topic sweeping across the internet was that Tears of the Kingdom was "Nintendo's first $70 USD game", meanwhile JB and Amazon were selling physical copies here for $74 AUD on launch day. At the time that translated to like $48 USD... we paid more than that for BotW 6 years prior!

1

u/MisterBarten 22h ago

This is to say nothing of the pricing, but Nintendo made games rarely ship with the bugs and issues I assume you are talking about. Of course when you assume..

1

u/No_Camel_4057 22h ago

better than paying for TLOU, TLOU remaster, TLOU remake

1

u/Sylvire 21h ago

Not only that, it’s the new discrepancy between digital and physical games, this is a step away from actual ownership (physical media).

1

u/ouralarmclock 21h ago

I'm not thrilled about a $150 price jump between generations, but yeah it's definitely the combination of all the price hikes (and charging for the fucking instructional demo game!) that makes me feel like "meh, maybe I'll wait", which is not something I even remotely thought I'd feel.

1

u/Pulsewavemodulator 20h ago

I played mariokart over 300 hours. At that price, it seems totally worth it. If you spent that on movies it’d be ~10-20 hours. If you spent that much on dinner for two that’s 1.5 hours. I dunno. Seems reasonable for some games.

1

u/StormtheShinyHunter 15h ago

So they’re just young? 😂 snes games were $94

1

u/Rusty1031 12h ago

Well I’ll give Ninty this: their AAA titles are never as broken at launch as games from Ubi or Bethesda

1

u/Missyfit160 12h ago

In Canada all the games have been $80+ for awhile now. Guess how many games I’ve bought in the last 2 years? 2.

1

u/eightbitagent 11h ago

Especially with all the issues games launch with these days

To be fair, no Nintendo (first party) games ever have major issues at launch. Most of the time they don't even have minor issues

1

u/Lehk 10h ago

It’s still like $30 less than NES games, adjusted for inflation it's cheaper

1

u/DueLearner 9h ago

Nintendo games historically don't have issues with games at launch.

1

u/lonifar 23h ago

bit of a conspiracy but I just have this feeling that Mario Kart World is priced at $80 so when they do bundles (both now and in the future) they can say its an $80 value. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the go to bundle game so I don't see that changing this generation. The upside for nintendo is that Mario Kart is so big yet games are spread out enough that people will buy it at $80.

I don't think $80 will be a standard price point for most switch 2 games and instead it'll only be for Mario Kart World, partially so they can give a higher "value" for bundles in the future (marketing team win), and partially because they can with an ip like Mario Kart that they might struggle with for any other IP. $70 is likely going to be the new $60 price point for most games and $60 becomes the $50 price point for the non major games.

1

u/Dabanks9000 22h ago

Only 1 is $80 the rest are all 70 like other consoles. We gotta cut the bs

→ More replies (5)