Former Nintendo of America marketing leads Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang have talked about the price point of Nintendo Switch 2 games, which will see an expected price jump compared with Nintendo Switch games. The pricing according to Elis reflects the Kyoto-based company’s long running mantra that the pricing reflects the quality of the games. While price increases on software were expected by many, the jump in price is certainly higher than the majority expected, with Mario Kart World costing £75/$80. Here’s what was said:
“Nintendo products have immense value, we must always respect that immense value,” Ellis said. “This is why these things don’t go on sale. The value is the value and we are seriously into that concept of ‘respect the value of what this thing is that we have made, because it is very special.'”
“This isn’t Ubisoft,” he joked.
“As a Nintendo customer, fan,” Yang agreed, “you’re kind of conditioned to, ‘If I want to buy this, I might as well by this now, because it’s not going to go on sale.'”
Though, Yang did offer something of a vague counterpoint to the company’s rigid price structure, saying, “Well, how far are you taking this concept of how much your stuff is worth?”
“It’s a Nintendo tax,” agreed Ellis, arguing from Nintendo’s perspective that, “What we made was $60. A lot of those other games that are $60 are junk. They don’t have the level of Nintendo quality or polish or attention, so we need to distinguish how premium this thing is through the pricing, and you will come to understand that.”
this ironically sounds like it was wrote by someone from ubisoft :/
Still won’t touch AC Shadows no matter the price.
I believe in a interview that is pretty old now Nintendo once said they never lower the prices because it will put the idea in people’s head that Nintendo games aren’t as wanted or something, its a selling scheme.
Ironically, we buy Nintendo games more often in physical form than digitally…
For example, xenoblade chroncile x we got it for 45€ (pre-ordered before its release) while you can find it at 60 on the eshop
We can grumble about the prices but I find them right for the most part, the only annoying thing is that the price doesn’t go down after several years… that they should change
On the other hand, I often read on forums that they should be inspired by steam and their reduction but it’s a double-edged sword as they explain and not everyone follows the directive of steam and its discounts, this is the case with the publisher of Factorio who had declared that he never wanted to participate in the Steam reclamation program
I totally agree with him in case of “respect the value of the product and don’t put it on sale” since it’s true there products are high quality, but Nintendo is not just value but also a “family oriented company” and putting games price into luxury categories goes against this concept
This is true but we must (unfortunately) take into account the economic reality, developing a game is excruciatingly expensive, it’s not for nothing that we often see indie games worthy of 16 bits but imagining Nintendo going back to that time is inconceivable.
I had read somewhere that one user out of X had “fun” comparing the prices of the different Nintendo consoles compared to their year of release and if they were to be released in 2025…there is no picture the most expensive was the wii u (if my memory doesn’t play tricks on me)
As for games, if we follow inflation: a game released 20 years ago at 60€ would cost 110 in 2025 !
Yes developing a game is expensive indeed. Especially when it comes to making any content for fans in all ages.
Why would making content for all ages be more expensive? That makes zero logical sense.
Nintendo is and will ALWAYS BE a money hungry/greedy company.
It does make proper sense because making content for a anticipated like DLC content does cost expensive. It seems to me that you clearly don’t understand any of this on what all of us talking about here.
Realistically though, games used to take 3-5 years to develop. Nowadays games take between 6months to 3 years to make on average (some take more time obviously) but they aren’t paying their employees more. The cost of production has fallen overall, not gone up like they want us to believe. Yes there are exceptions to this, but not enough to justify the massive price hike for family entertainment. Though I do feel the price of the console is at a good point at least.
He’s correct. It is extremely stupid for Ubi to spend $500mil on a mediocre game and then discount it to $5 a month after release. They and other companies have conditioned their customers into thinking their games are worthless. And that’s partially why they’re going out of business.
Has nothing to do with conditioning as their games ARE more or less rewashed nonsense and relatively worthless.
That said, Nintendo’s excuse is just to attempt to appease people that actually believe them.
Their products are as high quality as Sony, aka- it’s expensive and shittily made so you HAVE to but new remotes. I’m not buying this junk. There’s a sht ton of games with HIGHER QUALITY gaming that ain’t this stingy.
Nintendo can keep their cocky billionaire attitude, I’m not falling for their marketing scheme bullsht.
DROP THE PRICE
NO
DROP THE PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I will say: I think Nintendo’s pricing model is going to be different than most. We saw this first with TOTK. A last gen game that cost $70 BUT there was an insane amount of content. People are justified to be upset at the price but if the higher priced games mean better content all around then I’m happy to pay it
Seems like they are sticking with Nintendo side for the price point. I think the most part about companies like Nintendo is that they don’t want to upset consumers regarding how pricey their products and content are. They want to see performance to be more improved in their gemes so they won’t make the same mistake like they did with their previous products like the Wii U and it’s library games. If 450$ is worth something to buy instead of them dropping the small counter stone of the current price for the system, then I’m all in for it but it won’t suit much interested for me.
Is that why splatoon gets charged full price with its main features being locked behind another paywall? Or the incomplete Mario sports spinoffs that needed patches….
Back in the day on the Xbox 360, Namco was already locking DLC onto the DVD even though the game had barely been released. Blaming Nintendo for this now is a bit hypocritical…
Or we can call out both companies for their bad practices that take advantage of their customers. Just because another company did the bad thing first doesn’t mean we should let it slide when another company does it again later. Are you going to start defending companies for including loot boxes next? Call out bad practices for what they are; that’s how we make gaming better.
No it’s not, excusing one and not the other is hypocritical. Nintendo doesn’t get a pass when others didn’t.
Honestly yes. It depends on the game’s frame rate and content.
(Looks at the Mario Kart World screenshot)
We get it Nintendo, but that new design is still bullshit. #NotMyDonkeyKong
Nintendo has released so many unfinished games during the switch era that is HILARIOUS to read such a statement
It feels like gaslighting to be honest
People always moan that Nintendo don’t put their games on sale, but I just find that weird. Sales are not consumer-friendly. The idea you can buy a game one day and it’s 75% off the next is the opposite of consumer-friendly. If you don’t ever put your game on sale then as a consumer I know it costs what it costs and I can choose whether I value it at that, rather than worry about whether there might be some hypothetical sale in the future. Factorio is an example of a game that takes this philosophy – it never goes on sale, and it’s great because it means you can just buy it whenever you want.
Of course Nintendo actually do put their games on sale, but the discounts are not hugely deep and usually at least a year after a game has launched. If they want to do a 20% discount a year after launch then as a launch day purchaser I don’t personally feel stung by that. But for many games you see them going on huge discounts within months or even weeks of release, and that’s just a slap in the face to their most dedicated fans who bought Day 1. If you think your game is worth $20, just sell it for $20.
To be clear, this isn’t full support of Nintendo’s pricing strategy, because there is no doubt the huge increases to game prices in Switch 2 are anti-consumer.
I don’t play Mario or anything like it I only have a switch because of Pokémon and if Pokémon gonna be 80$ it better come with free DLC because that what we paying now
People moan about everything when it comes to cost of living.
I wonder why
I think you know why exactly. Because in this reality, people have to pay less interest for their living services like gas, rent, food and etc. Gaming platforms has becoming a little expensive now and days like that PS5 and Series X consoles.
Right because all I ever hear is how cheap rent, gas, and groceries are lmao
DRIP THE PRICE
I don’t think you understand the definition of “consumer friendly”, especially when Nintendo is so anti-consumer that it hurts
It’s NOT consumer friendly to not put games on sales. That’s insanity.
Funny how these same people upset about the price of Nintendo games are willing to pay $100 for base CoD with 80% of it’s content gutted and locked behind multiple paywalls. I swear some people are as Carlos Mencia once said, smacks head with microphone dee dee dee.
You just made up some imaginary people, doing some imaginary thing in your head, so that you can soothe your boot-licking rage.
DROP THE PRICE
Mario + rabbids serie is ubisoft and is only tactic turnbased on switch. Both is great.
I’m not going to spend $500 on a console whose supreme technological advancements are 4K output, HDR support, and crappy zoom calls while playing on a 480p gimmick camera. I’m also not spending $80 on a Mario Kart game that looks more like Disney Speedstorm than it does Mario Kart. You will come to understand that.
Is this some kind of joke?
Okay Nintendo, if the price reflects the quality of the game.. Then where is all the content in Mario Kart? It’s the same game, AGAIN.. pretty much.
Diddy Kong Racing was full of content and that released back on the N64!
At this point Mario Party is much better in terms of variety, actually, that goes for most of the good MP games.
Nintendo just continues to disappoint, the fans eat up garbage like Pokémon, it’s like COD.. same thing every time.
So patting yourselves on the back and saying you’re automatically superior to everyone else is supposed to be an excuse for a price hike. Right. Got it.
The fact anyone is finding that a valid argument whatsoever, really says it all. How dare you.
So patting yourselves on the back and saying you’re automatically superior to everyone else is supposed to be an excuse for a price hike. Right. Got it.
The fact anyone is finding that a valid argument whatsoever, really says it all. How dare you.
If you don’t like Nintendo that’s your opinion and I respect that. I love the games Nintendo publishes and yet I often find myself hating their business practices. Reminder, if you are looking for high performance/high video quality games Nintendo is not the place to look. Nintendo thrives in the quirky and creative games, not the sure high def. department. $80 is a bit steep, I will admit, yet if that’s the cost I have to pay to play my favorite franchises I’m willing to. If you’re not then that’s ok. At the end of the day it’s up to people individually how they want to spend their money, and if it’s different to how I spend my own, how am I supposed to say they are wrong for that. It’s just different and that’s ok. Have a great rest of your day!
Amindlessdronesayswhat?
Well, if this isn’t arrogance speaking, then I don’t know what it is, they literally sound like ubisoft, a company that heavily overvalue their usually average (and below average) products as if they were premium content, after all, they claimed they would be the first ones to make AAAA games.
First of all, the reason why games NEED a standarized price, it’s because nobody can’t really determine the “value” of a game. It’s literally the issue of charging 100 dollars because the game has 100 hours of content, like, that doesn’t make sense, having a lot of content doesn’t make it good if most of it it’s boring and repetitive, and just there to bloat the game with stuff to do for the sake of it.
Like, I actually don’t think highly of games like GTA, for me, they aren’t worth more than 60, despite being incredible games from a technical standpoint, because I find them to be insanely boring games to play. On that same note, I will happily pay 60 dollars for Bayonetta, because despite being shorter, not having “100 hours content” and not being a “super production”, it easily gave me hundreds of hours of fun time. Speaking in regards to nintendo games, it’s insanely cocky of them to think their games are THAT perfect that they not only shouldn’t go on sale never, but also, charge more for them. I can tell you, despite enjoying a lot, Tears of the kingdom wasn’t really a 70 dollar game, and that’s comming from someone who defended it from those who called it a mere “dlc expansion”, because the game has revamped mechanics that can’t be implemented on the original Botw, but still not exactly groundbreaking like Botw to justify such high price.
I like their games, I’ve been fan since my childhood, but damn do they get over their heads so much, like, no, your content isn’t really THAT premium.
Interesting insights from former Nintendo PR leads. The idea that Nintendo maintains pricing to emphasize perceived value certainly aligns with their long-standing strategy. While this may frustrate some consumers hoping for discounts, it does help preserve the brand’s premium image. It’s a different approach from platforms that frequently drop prices. Ironically, this also makes services like YouCine apk more appealing for users who want access to entertainment without the high upfront cost, though clearly for gaming, Nintendo’s ecosystem follows its own rules.
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