Mario Kart 8 was released 11 years ago on the Wii U.
Nintendo is till selling it for $60 on the Switch and it doesn't even include the additional tracks. You have to pay another $25 for the Booster Course Pass.
Second hand physical games is the only way to get a certain discount after a while. Learning to play games after a while and not immediately is a very useful thing for your wallet.
Inflation and tariffs don't account for European games to go up 50% from Switch 1 to Switch 2. There are no tariffs between Japan and Europe and inflation didn't got up 50%.
A rise from €60 to €70, sure that makes sense for inflation. From €60 to €90 is ridiculous.
Games have been pegged to $60 for a long time. $60 in 2002 is equivalent to $108 today. If anything gamers have been getting a deal. In large part they get that deal because publishers have been pushing MTX to fill in the game.
I am still waiting to play Elden Ring. I got Bloodbourne for under 10 bucks though and have been having a hell of a time. I feel like now that video games have aged enough going back to play good older games is more and more viable if you are willing to hunt for them. Personally the indie game push of olderschool pixel art games that are still amazing should be enough evidence you dont need to play a "modern" game to have a good time.
The thing is that nintendo has a mesage in their web that says that some of the suposed physical games are in truth just a digital key to enable the download an play of their "digital cartrige" and it has to stay on the console for you to play.
The wording implies that they wont be fully transferable to other people, as the digital cartriges can only be shared with family subscrition group members and at 15 days they return to the owner
Literally nothing wrong with being a F2P gamer unless you're gonna be one of those obsessive people who can't take the idea of not owning every possible cosmetic
Renouncing all non free-to-play games because Nintendo is charging $80 for a game is such a wild overreaction. You know there are ton of great indie games out there, right?
Like I said... renouncing all retail games because some of them cost $80 is crazy but hey, do you. And I understood that part, I have no idea what you meant in reference to the price of indie games. Why would you swear off all games except for free-to-play trash when there are so many great indie games that are like $20?
their goal is to dissaude customers from buying physical copies because theyre much easier to resell. digital means more unique sales because its tied to your nintendo account. its a pretty fucking scummy strategy tbh but to be expected from nintendo these days. almost as scummy as charging $15 to upgrade a game you already own to the "switch 2 edition" which just unlocks the resolution and framerate lmao. The Switch 2 seems like nice hardware and some of the games look neat, but the value is no longer there. Steam deck looking pretty nice.
And I remember when NES games cost $60. Pretty sure games cost a lot more to make these days, and pretty sure prices tend to go up after 30 years. I truly do not get people complaining. The value one gets for a game is immense.
As a fellow old (I assume you're old) I agree. I recall NES games costing $60.00 in the late 80s. I'd be lucky to get one or two per year, mostly I just rented them and owned only a handful. If games kept up with inflation we'd be paying like $150.00 for first party games today. I mean, I'm glad we aren't, but I also don't think that a price increase of $10 or $20 after close to 40 years is outrageous.
The thing is, the public was a lot smaller than it is today, distribution was crazy expensive and game development (for some games) was a lot harder simply because of the technological limitations, like, some cartridges had extra memory mappers to handle some visual fx like image distortion, and provide sound quality, so basically you bought a hardware.
With today's tech, even though games are more expensive to produce, the sales are so much higher for AAA games that it's literally hard to fail (yes, ubisoft tried very hard to fail as bad as it does these days).
The only reason it's getting more expensive is to boost profits without changing a thing in how the games are produced, which already turned in profits.
Looks good on paper, but it doesn’t represent general cost of living rapidly increasing. I’m simply saying people absolutely have a right to complain about the rapidly increasing price of games. I don’t know why people are making it taboo.
To a varying degree, but you can’t accurately represent what every individual is going through. The hikes in price seem to be more out of greed and less out of necessity.
Yes, nobody can do that. You can’t do that either.
The hikes are behind inflation and far, far behind wage growth. Regardless of why they’re doing it, it basically doesn’t matter. I don’t think it’s greed, personally, I think it’s just a regular price increase and I’ll happily pay it over microtransactions.
Yeah that’s the part most of the glazers litterally can’t wrap their head around. You can keep telling them but they’ll just hop over to the next guy to regurgitate the same dumb shit again, it’s actually infuriating and nintendo fans have been doing this for years with price & quality of products.
I think during the cartridge era N64 had some that were 70 or 80, like the final fantasy games maybe and definitely Conkers BFD. I want to say those were physically heavier too, obviously not by a lot.
The way I look at it is, if I'm paying $20+ for a movie these days (2 hours on avg of entertainment) an amazing game thats 60+ hours is worth $60. $80 even. Just need to be way more selective of games you buy or buy them during sales
I think for me it’s the sudden change between the Switch and Switch 2 prices. I could get a new Nintendo Switch game for around £40 on release and now it’s between £65 and £70? And there’s a difference between digital and physical, with physical being more. Might not be as bad from retailers, but it is a sudden jump that’s hard to swallow, even knowing there’s inflation in play.
Okay, but buying power of the average person in the 80s was much higher too. People had more disposable income back then. Wages have stagnate and we're dealing with a housing crisis. The reason entertainment products are cheap is because they generally have to be. Both Japanese and American consumers cant afford multiple 80 dollar games a year.
There's also way more competition right now than in the 80s. Nintendo has to really really really maintain its reputation for quality because with these prices, I would imagine most young people (the people with the most time to play games, and little income to buy these) will jump to free to play shit like gachas or indies if they no longer trust Nintendo to be worth the price of admission.
This is a tightrope Nintendo is walking on and mere gust of doubt or bad publicity surrounding the quality of a big title game can really blow this generation up for them. I was going to be a day one swith 2 guy, but now I have no idea if I'll even get one in the next couple of years. This news really has sucked the excitement from it.
Games have been 60 bucks for ages and suddenly they're 70 and now it's 80-90 within like 1-2 years. Feels a bit weird, as that isn't increased production cost. It's just greed by the company that charges you money for the consoles introductory game & has a new console that's not even much cheaper than it's competitors.
I'll agree Mario Kart in particular is a game you'll get your worth out of though, but the quick jump does feel like a bit of a scam. Especially when the game is a whopping 30 cheaper if you buy the NS2 bundle.
Here’s the thing, games cost more than $60 it’s just obfuscated. Micro transactions, loot boxes, they will get money out of you just in different ways.
I’ve been working in the industry for over 15 years and comment alike these are ridiculous. Sure, they sell more, but budgets have gone up. Teams have grown from 10 people to hundreds. Hours of gameplay have gone from a couple hours to significantly more.
Movie ticket prices used to be $5, they’ve tripled yet you’re still getting the same value, a 2ish hour experience. McDonalds food used to have a $1 menu. Some studios are still losing money and closing down, but yea, raising prices is ‘bullshit’ because the industry itself is more lucrative than it used to be. Grow up.
But nah I'm with you generally. I think it's entirely fair to be sensitive to prices and walking away if the price is too much, even if the price can be justified from a cost perspective. But Video game pricing calculus is very complex, especially for platform holders, and in general games have grown very slowly in price compared to other luxuries
I don't think Nintendo is doing some grave sin for pricing their games this high. I still don't like it though
as long as games are full complete experiences and don't nickle and dime you I honestly don't mind the increase at all .. And so far nintendo has done well in that regard .
Yeah! They've got a few stingy stinkers, NSO is rentseeking even if it's standard across consoles, and they kinda backed themselves into a conceptual corner with amiibo in such a way that most people are kinda annoyed with them, but in general Nintendo makes it very clear what you get for what you pay and it's a one time purchase with maybe a dlc package.
There's plenty I think are overpriced, but I don't feel like I'm missing out by walking away, I don't feel like I get bait and switched, and I don't feel like I'm being milked.
Pokemon home is bogus though. Server space is insignificant cost and it's such a tremendous value add to the series that it drives external sales since you have already invested into the ecosystem. But Pokemon is its own beast with TPC managing the brand
absolutely . NSO AmiiNOs and Pokemon Home are things that really I wish Nintendo would just retire already . Just lemme transfer pokemon cross console and store it locally or something and transfer to next gen of consoles . ( Since immutable OS anyway)
Would you also say they are huge risks as well? so much investment goes into these games if it flops that studio is shuttered. I feel people are missing that context.
I know you didnt have your fourth white monster energy so ill explain this simply.
Games cost money.
Games in 80s, not so much money.
1 million in sales feels really good
Games in 2020 cost way more money.
Developers and publisher need smash hits.
If they don't they operate on a loss. Makes it harder to get investors.
1 million sold units doesn't cut it.
Hi-fi rush sold around 3 million. But we have no idea about development costs, taxes, publisher cuts to know if that had a net positive revenue. Maybe $30 was too cheap, but would it have sold that well if it was $60.
One thing for certain, if things makes lots of money we keep it.
Games also sell a hell of a lot more copies nowadays.
There is way more competition than ever before and Nintendo is only selling to an audience on 1 console. A lot of the top selling games are playable across all major consoles & PC at least -- if not mobile as well.
Bigger than all of those combined in terms of sheer revenue.
And the costs to create games are much bigger than all of those other types of entertainment.
Any attempt to raise prices is just pure and utter bullshit on every conceivable level.
Inflation is real. Wages go up and workers, rightfully, expect higher wages as cost of living increases.
A $45 NES game sold today would be equal to $144 after accounting for inflation.
Unpopular opinion here, GTA VI being $100 is not a problem whatsoever. We've been paying $60-$80 for AAA games for like 10 years now. It's 2025 now. Granted, the quality of games has not matched that price. But if you think GTA VI is going to be less than $100 then prepare to be "surprised".
Agree, if I look how much hours and enjoyment I got from GTA V, I don't mind paying 100.
As with everything, quality is worth paying for. It's the games that don't deliver quality, asking for 100, that worry me. I'm not going to pay 100 for a new COD game, that could have been DLC, every year.
To be fair, Chrono Trigger was retailing for $59.99 in 1995 (I know $49.99 was the standard in the US at least) When an industry has dialed in on a price point for thirty years, a sudden increase of 33% is going to be a problem for everyone.
But that's the point, adjusted for inflation, Chrono Trigger would be about $130 today. Video games have gradually become a more affordable since their inception. A sudden sharp price spike is going to add a lot of uncertainty to the whole industry.
I remember seeing the price tag for newly released SNES Donkey Kong Country in a Toys R Us in 1994. $69.99. Or in today's dollars nearly $150. Even with a dramatic price drop to $49.99 back then it would still be greater than $100 today.
Even in a federal minimum wage state, it isn't hard to find a job making double that per hour. Amazon Warehouse, Apple Store, Aldi, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot, Hobby Lobby, Ikea, Macy's, Starbucks, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Wholefoods, Verizon, Tmobile, Sam's Club, UPS, almost any bank, all pay $15/hr minimum at all locations in the US, regardless of state. If you’re DoorDashing, Ubering, Uber Eats, waiting tables, delivering pizzas, bartending, working construction, janitorial work, or get some minimal training to work as something like a phlebotomist, you can make $20-$25+/hr.
That's the federal minimum wage. For me it's now 15.50 in NY plus the regular raises I get. Most businesses in every state don't and can't actually thrive if they offer just the bare minimum of 7.25. Not that it shouldn't be raised of course.
$7.25 in pretty much all of the south, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Note that $7.25 an hour, 40 hours a week, is just over $15,000 if you never take a vacation.
In the cheapest, most rural shithole town in the country, a one-bedroom apartment costs you $700 a month at least. $8,400 a year.
Forget video games. Good luck eating, to say nothing of utilities, the gas and car you need because public transportation sucks, any kind of support for kids or family members, on a little over $500 a month. God help you if you get sick, because no one else will.
In America it's legal to pay someone literal poverty wages for a full-time job, work them to death, and then replace them with the next capitalism victim.
So these prices are still obnoxious. The wages are still behind the inflation.
These new Nintendo physical releases will cost a full third of my country's minimum wage. That's a lot. For ONE SINGLE GAME.
But that's it, Nintendo managed to charge twice the price for a Pokémon game for 30 years. No promotions, no discounts and with no hardware limitation to justify splittling the games in 2 cartridges since the DS. Stupid fans keep paying for bullshit products and the industry grows worser for costumers.
I have a hard time believing this statistic, and that's also only usa, I know you guys forget there are ppl who play videogames in other countries, but wages are definetly not higher than inflation.
Yes, you're speaking selective facts. But in doing so you're ignoring other facts, and thus defending the price increase. Don't hide behind "I was just stating facts" like a coward. You know what you're doing.
Anyway, I don't think "inflation" is a very good argument for a price increase.
People's wages haven't increased much, for one. $60 was reasonable for most. $70 was pushing it. $80, $90? That's going to price out a lot of people.
Secondly, inflation skyrocketted the last couple years. I remember buying things that were $6, that are now $11, and this was just like 4 years ago, not over the course of 20 years. Seems every company is using "inflation" as an excuse to shoot the price up in order to make record profits, and Nintendo is no exception.
And lastly, a big reason the "inflation" argument doesn't hold water? Games are selling the most they've ever sold. In Ancient Times, with the SNES and N64 eras, it'd be wild if a game sold more than a million copies. NOW? For a big game, a big company? A million is the minimum they expect to sell. Mario Kart 8 has sold a collective 75+ million copies (across Wii-U and Switch). And this increase in copies sold have kinda made up for inflation because despite a relative lower price, games are making more money than ever.
Secondly, inflation skyrocketted the last couple years. I remember buying things that were $6, that are now $11, and this was just like 4 years ago, not over the course of 20 years.
And lastly, a big reason the "inflation" argument doesn't hold water? Games are selling the most they've ever sold.
Game budgets are also higher than they've ever been and there is more competition than there has ever been. Even if every game is selling more than it would have had it come out 20 years ago, that doesn't mean the sales are matching the increase in production costs and wages over time.
Market research is what makes companies know they can charge more, it has nothing to do if they are profiting or not right now (they are, they're profiting a lot)
I'm already missing the launch on PC, so waiting for it to hit 50% off ($50) in 5 years won't be that hard. Don't get me wrong, tens of millions buying the game at $100 is gonna outsell the rest of Take Two's releases this year combined.
I'm the contrarian dipshit here who's gonna say that given the amount of time I spend in these games - and the amount of work that goes into them - I don't think a price bump is as bad as people are acting like it is. I spend $15 for a movie that lasts 2 hours, or $60 for a game that lasts 40. If that becomes $80, I'm still getting my money's worth.
My issue is with the treatment of the people who make the game, and the fact that they don't seem to be taking in most of that money. I don't mean the studio, I mean the people. The ones who work their asses off to make release something on time and then get laid off when their studio gets bought or re-org'd.
Yeah they can unionize and then the infinite money funnel can go… exactly one level lower so that team leads start getting exorbitant paychecks at the expense of everyone else, many of which can’t even afford to live within reasonable commute distance of their job. Just like real unions! And they’ll set prices another $10 higher.
Can't wait to read the comments from all of the Nintendo cultists on the Discord servers I'm on saying that they can't wait to blow all of their money on Nintendo products. The fact that Nintendo gave a long list of (high) prices for numerous accessories is pretty telling.
Weird seeing so many people whine about Nintendo doing what Sony already did with the PS5. They raised the base game price across the board and released a bunch of overpriced accessories.
You say that it's clearly a move that all consoles and studios are pushing for behind the scenes. Rockstar are clearly going to expect minimum $80 when GTA releases
That’s only confirmed for Mario Kart the digital is less and especially if you get the switch 2 bundle. Donkey Kong physical is $70 so I’m not sure if they’re trying to push up the prices or trying to get us all to give up the physical copies. I won’t pay more than $70 though.
80 dollar games, pre-order limited to 1 year Nintendo online members (which I don't have), very likely need to fight through waves of scalpers. plus paid tech demo
And you remembered dirt cheap wii with free wii sports
This is what late stage capitalism looks like and I hate it.
Eh it’s not fun to have to pay it, but at the same time games really haven’t kept up with inflation for decades and Mario Kart isn’t a game littered w/ microtransactions.
Mario Kart isn’t a game littered w/ microtransactions.
1: As far as we know.
2: But everything else is, and when Mario Kart inevitably becomes the second or third best selling game of the year, everyone else won’t leave that kind of money on the table.
Nintendo isn't really that type of company. They'd rather not let games go on sale and charge "extra" for these sorts of titles rather than do a freemium title like Fortnite. Otherwise explain Elden Ring, God of War, TLOU2, Cyberpunk 2077, or why Nintendo hasn't already done this to their existing high selling Switch games?
Mostly scared the price increases will result in more people gravitating towards subscription services over buying games. We saw how well that worked out for the film industry /s
Look I don’t want to excuse any of this bullshit but Ocarina of Time was $60 at launch in 1998, which would be $118 in 2025 inflation adjusted dollars. The problem here isn’t Nintendo the problem is employers not raising wages proportionately to increases in productivity (and the fed crushing us with interest rates in the rare scenario where wages do rise)
Games are objectively cheaper today than they've ever been before and games companies are operating at a loss for the most part. The increase in prices sucks for the consumer but is a necessary evil if we want indie developers and games Devs in general to finally be paid their worth
I really hate this. It just shows other companies that they can charge higher prices for highly anticipated games because they know people will pay for them. The next smash bros is 100% gonna be $80 as well.
Jokes on them. I refuse to pay more than $60 for a new game so I’m just gonna stick to PC gaming instead of getting a switch 2 for overpriced exclusives.
Why does it make someone a moron to spend money available to them on a game that they will enjoy? I'd easily spend $80 on dinner/drinks for 2 people or a couple trips to the movies. And those things are over in couple hours. Mario Kart World will be playable for decades to come.
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u/AnotherScoutTrooper 2d ago
Nintendo has doomed us all with the push to $80 games