Not defending Dementia Donny and either way I’m not shelling out $80 for a game ever, just wondering if this is really a result of the tariffs. I understand the console price being high due to them but I don’t see how it would affect the price of games that are essentially going to be 100% digital
Considering they are delaying pre orders due to the tariffs I do not think tariffs are the reason the price is so high. I think Nintendo is trying to set a new standard for game prices. If these games still sell at $80 then I wouldn’t be surprised to see GTA 6 release for $100. The whole gaming market will likely follow.
luckily, this is the one industry you can boycott them AND still get the product anyway 🏴☠️
Or be a patient gamer and get it on a sale.
only when the companies i’m paying money to are not as horrible as nintendo.
theres plenty of games out there you can buy day 1 without being extorted these days.
Well I’ve had essentially every console Nintendo has ever produced, but at least for now I’m not excited about the switch 2 for this very reason, I’m fairly put off about it.
I’m either going to buy a steamdeck or wait for the cost to go down (Nintendo is usually firm with their pricing though) on the Switch 2 before I’ll ever buy it or any games.
Especially while the US languishes under trump for the next nearly four years. I’m not going to have a lot of extra space for added expenses and price gouging.
Buy a steam deck
Buy a Steam deck OLED and play Holo Knight.
If you don’t play on PC at all, a steamdeck will open you up to a whole new world of opportunity with games that are really cheap.
Vote with your wallet, and don’t let the FOMO pull you in.
Nintendo is just a small slice of the gaming industry. If you don’t like what you see there are other platforms and game developers.
For 80 usd you can buy a handful of bigger titles during a Steam sale. Just saying.
Unpopular opinion:
They could probably charge $100 and people would still buy them, despite knowing the games aren’t worth that much. Consumers don’t really care; they just want their dopamine fixes. Nintendo could wrap a literal turd up and label it the next Zelda game, and people would bum rush stores with fistfuls of money to buy it; just because.
I don’t think it’s as much of an unpopular opinion as it is just a thing that happens. If the Sims community has taught me anything, diehard fans of a franchise will keep shelling out hundreds of dollars for new content even if it’s overpriced dogshit
And unfortunately until the community puts their collective foot down, these game developers (Nintendo, EA, etc) will continue churning out dog shit.
The opinion of someone who didn’t care for the new Zelda games (BoTW & the other one), is that they already wrapped a turd & called it the next Zelda game, twice.
This is the problem with tariffs, it’s an opportunity for greedy corporations to increase prices MORE than the tariffs or on products not covered by the tariffs and no one will be the wiser.
Stage 2 greedflation
The prices are still calculated pre-tariffs, thats why they stopped preorders because the price will go up most likely.
I think asking for high prices for both the console and the games is a big mistake.
Nintendo just greedy, always have been, always will be. Don’t buy their trash, just emulate it.
They don’t take in the same amounts of profits as other greedy companies. Only $1.5 billion last year. Still a lot, don’t get me wrong.
I don’t care for them because of the way they gatekeep games they don’t even produce anymore, like old NES/SNES games. their anti emulation stance is pure garbage, either sell the game or fuck off when people emulate it, you don’t get it both ways.
This!
I haven’t bought a Nintendo product since the Wii. Emulate it for better frames anyway. It’s easy, and you can slap it on a steam deck or another portable.
IIRC the price was announced first, and it’s the same in other countries so I don’t think that’s the reason. Which means that lets asume they will use Japan’s tariffs of 24% on them their base price goes from 80 to 99.2, plus in the USA prices are usually pre-tax so you also add tax on top of that, this varies from state to state, but a quick Google puts it at around 5%, so you will actually be paying $104.16 for them, and $117.18 for physical copies, or $126.63 if they’re manufactured in China and you get that tariff instead. This is just one example of what these isolationist policies will cause, be prepared to have that happen to everything.
The increased price is not the result of tariffs, neither for the games nor console. That’s pretty much confirmed by them costing the same amount (converted + sales tax) in Europe. The console is (was, before tariffs) fairly priced imo, it is comparable to the steam deck + dock.
Is 80$ Mario Kart price gouging? Eh. The edit maniac in the comments here is right that video games have become cheap, maybe even too cheap, and that a price increase at some point was inevitable. 60$ was set as the AAA price before the smartphone existed, and was not always profitable as we’ve seen with the recent lay-offs.
My own 2 cents: I’m glad some company broke that unspoken rule (we ignore skull and bones for obvious reasons), so big releases have more options in pricing, too long have we accepted 60$ games with 20$ DLC, I’m glad if this means devs can just charge 80$ for a full game. Oh, and it’s good for indie games too. People may actually buy the shorter games with worse graphics they wanted so badly a few months ago.
too long have we accepted 60$ games with 20$ DLC, I’m glad if this means devs can just charge 80$ for a full game.
Breath of the Wild was a $60 game with $20 DLC when it launched in 2017. Eight years later, its Switch 2 Edition is now a $70 game that (seemingly but not yet 100% confirmed) still has the same $20 DLC sold separately. This is a game that already sold enough copies to earn back over 16 times its development cost.
As for Mario Kart World, I’ll be surprised if Nintendo doesn’t announce DLC plans in its upcoming presentation two weeks from now, but that remains to be seen.
I’d love to blame him but that seems like Nintendo’s choice. Yeah, I’m not fucking spending $80 on a game, especially when I have a gaming PC
It’s always corporate greed.
They can afford to sell games for $60 and still turn a profit.
But there’s an excuse to charge $70 because inflation.
And there’s and excuse to charge $90 because tariffs.
Ocarina of Time cost $116.91 at launch, accounting for inflation.
Edit: the original Legend of Zelda cost $144.89 at launch, also after inflation.
Games don’t cost 90$ today for other platforms tho… even Nintendo that are a few years old still cost basically the same as at launch
True, sure. I’m just saying the overall price of games has gone down significantly over time. An upward correction makes some sense. I’m not cheering it on, just trying to help frame the circumstances.
Competition for entertainment is higher than ever. You even have extremely good free games
An upward increase makes sense only because corporations will try to squeeze every possible cent from consumer. That’s the only justification that they need
I inherited a switch from someone who wasn’t using it and was blown away by the prices for the majority of games on it. They were charging AAA prices for Mario titles. If they had priced their Mario. Zelda titles at half the price, those things would have dominated before the SteamDeck’s came out. The switch is barely used.
The other thing about this price point is that it’s a headline grabber - and then once people find out more, they will spot that if you buy a Switch with MK preinstalled, the game costs half that.
So suddenly it feels like, “oh hey, that’s a great deal, and I was obviously going to buy a Switch 2 anyway” - and Nintendo get the sales and the decreased cost of manufacturing the physical game.
Games have been around the $50-$70 mark my entire life.
It’s a sad reality, but I expect prices of major mainstream games to go up, regardless of tariffs.
Distribution cost of games has gone down to almost zero since then.
Frankly, I don’t even really mind as long as they’re not riddled with micro transactions, and there’s a solid selection of indie and older games that cost less to choose from. Part of the problem is Nintendo never lowers their prices on old games.
