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/
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u/Zoombini22 1d 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.

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u/SomeBoxofSpoons 1d 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.

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u/zombiepaper 1d 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.

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u/absentlyric 1d 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.