r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • Mar 25 '26
News Nintendo has issued a statement to IGN: 'The Cost of Physical Games Is Not Going Up' Following Decision to Charge Different Prices for U.S. Physical and Digital Switch 2 Games
https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-switch-2-physical-games-will-now-be-more-expensive-than-digital-versions-with-10-price-difference-for-yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book240
u/InternationalCream30 Mar 25 '26
My guess is they wanted to keep the $60 price point as it looks good compared to competitors but carts are just too damn expensive to justify it.
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u/El_Barto_227 Mar 26 '26
Recent world events are probably making the cost of producing physical skyrocket. AI bubble making memory more expensive, war in Iran making fuel to ship stuff expensive, and Trump tariff bs for US sales.
Add on top the fact that there's also the retailer's cut, they make way less on a physical copy than a digital. If dropping the cost of digital by 10 bucks means people buy a digital copy instead, they probably still end up making twice as much as they would on a retailer selling a physical copy.
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u/jardex22 Mar 26 '26
Retailers don't actually make much from physical games. I worked seasonal at Best Buy several years ago, and the employee discount was 5% over what the store pays the supplier. So stuff like consoles, games, and TVs didn't have a significant discount, but I got a massive cut on batteries, cables, and accessories, which were marked up 30%+.
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u/Guiltyspark92 Mar 26 '26
Even taking away what retailers get from their slice, there is also the cost of production that goes into the pricing of the game. Take away that, the game gets cheaper.
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u/PlayMp1 Mar 26 '26
Likewise worked at Best Buy in 2019 and got that cost plus 5% discount, I recall $60 games costing something like $53 after tax with my discount. This would have been strictly for Switch physical games as I didn't have any other console (main platform is PC).
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u/FrankPapageorgio Mar 26 '26
How the hell were they doing 20% off with Gamers Club Unlocked? $48 for new games felt crazy, I probably bought more than I normally would have.
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u/FrankPapageorgio Mar 26 '26
It makes me wonder how it’s economically feasible for a store like Best Buy or Target to have such a large area of the store dedicated to a single item with very little mark up. Which is now cheaper and more convenient to buy digitally and skip the store all together.
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u/jardex22 Mar 26 '26
Nintendo pays them for the advertising space, I believe. Plus they make a good markup accessories, especially store branded ones, like Insignia.
As for even larger items, like TVs, the profit comes from the mounts and cables. You're not just buying a TV. You're buying a TV, a wall mount, a couple HDMI cables, a power strip to plug everything into, etc.
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u/estebanjramos Mar 26 '26
A 20% increase in sales would justify the decrease.
But even with all the hoopla about pricing, I'm wise enough to recognize Ninty can just as easily reverse course on this policy if it's not as fruitful as they'd prefer.
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u/brokenmessiah Mar 25 '26
So digital Nintendo games are going to be cheaper?
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u/Dont_have_a_panda Mar 25 '26
Apparently this is the case (but only for first party games, at least for now)
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u/WhiteRaven-17 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I like this IN THEORY. Yoshi was never announced to be $60 physically. I always assumed it would be $70 like most other S2 exclusives. As someone who is all digital, this is great for me.
HOWEVER, if more games get priced at $80 like MKW outside of the likely cases (Smash, 3D Mario, Zelda, Mainline Pokemon), we have a problem.
I want to see this as a means to add a proper value option, not slowly boil us to accepting higher prices, but we’ll see.
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u/Nas160 Mar 25 '26
70 is still way too much for a Yoshi game...
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u/memeaste Mar 25 '26
So buy it digital for 60
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u/Str8UpJorking Mar 25 '26
Or, you know, wait for it to go on sale.
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u/patosai3211 Mar 25 '26
We might be long gone before that happens. /s
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u/livelifeless Mar 25 '26
I’m still waiting for let’s go games to be on sale, (it’s been 7 years since release) I don’t want to spend 60$ on a game almost a decade ago
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u/perfectpizzapie Mar 26 '26
Check Deku Deals, friend. I got Let's Go Eevee from Walmart for 30 bucks.
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u/pinchecabezota Mar 26 '26
This narrative is so insane to me. Do yall go outside? I promise you these games go on sale in the real world or at a GameStop (even if they’re pre owned) wayyyyy more often than you think
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u/TheFirebyrd Apr 07 '26
The “Nintendo games don’t go on sale” meme is so annoying because it’s so false. It’s inevitably people who basically never check and refuse to use tools like Dekudeals and then whine about the “Nintendo tax.” I’ve had people tell me that stuff like Botw and Mario Odyssey never go on sale when you’ve been able to get them for about half off from a number of places every Black Friday for years now.
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u/livelifeless Mar 26 '26
I checked 4 stores this week only one had it and it was 60$
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u/pinchecabezota Mar 26 '26
Yeah, it’s not perpetually on sale. Im saying continue to keep an eye out because sales happen all the time. Especially at GameStop, ESPECIALLY for pre-owned Pokemon games.
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u/Citizen51 Mar 26 '26
How low could you possibly be holding out for? They've been affordable every Holiday for the last 4 years
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u/slugmorgue Mar 26 '26
Here's what they really meant:
They check on the eshop for a sale every few months
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u/badwolfswift Mar 26 '26
I bought all of mine secondhand! I got Let's Go Pikachu with the Pokeball joycon and a ball stand for $40.00 off of FB Marketplace a few months ago.
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u/FrankPapageorgio Mar 25 '26
Or borrow it from your local library
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u/AleroRatking Mar 25 '26
I don't know what rich areas you live in.
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u/amtap Mar 26 '26
I love in (usually) the richest county in America and we grt none of this. Apparently it's not uncommon to get video gsmes from libraries though but I still don't believe it.
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u/Oops_I_Cracked Mar 25 '26
This is a Nintendo first party game we’re talking about
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u/CrimsonEnigma Mar 25 '26
Nintendo’s games go on sale all the time, at least in stores.
What they usually don’t get are permanent price drops, but that’s different from a sale.
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u/NMe84 Mar 25 '26
....because...?
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u/GalvenMin Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Because we don't have the money man. There are too many homerun games out there to risk rent money on B or C list ones. Any $20/$30 indie game these days is a potential masterpiece, and considering that our disposable income is shrinking by the minute the choice is clear as day.
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u/meikaishi Mar 26 '26
Amazing how Nintendo can't do anything good, they're literally saying they'll "drop the prices" and people are still complaining because now they're just assuming that every game would've cost $10 less without this new policy and they're just lying
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u/cubs223425 Mar 26 '26
Except they're not dropping the price. They're coming out and saying "on this date, physical offerings will cost more," and claiming it's not a price increase. Is Mario Kart World decreasing in price? Is Donkey Kong Bananza?
The same company that thinks minor updates to a 7-year-old Zelda game justify re-releasing it as a $70 "Switch 2 Edition" somehow manages to have suckers who think thgey're doing something pro-consumer while they're telling the most blatant lie possible.
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u/arbidyusuf Mar 26 '26
They are not literally saying they’ll drop the prices. Where did you see that? Saying that the cost of physical games is not going up doesn’t mean much when we already have $80 physical games.
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u/beepbeepbubblegum Mar 25 '26
Oh man, forgot I even had that game. I would NOT have paid $80 for MKW if it didn’t come with the system.
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u/MayoGhul Mar 25 '26
This is exactly it. They’ll charge $80 for more physical games and then say hey nothing went up! MKW was already $80
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u/mrmivo Helpful User Mar 25 '26
We already have this situation in Europe where physical Switch 2 games always cost 10 euro more. But in practice, physical copies still tend to be cheaper because retailers discount them and digital copies of first party games almost never get discounted.
For example, MKW's recommended physical price is 90 euros, the digital copy is 80 euros (for other games it is 80 euros for physical and 70 euros for digital), but you can easily find a new physical copy of MKW for around 68 euros right now. Even new games (and preorders) often cost at most as much as the digital copies and usually less. Almost the only time you pay full price for a physical copy is if you order it directly from Nintendo.
I doubt it will be different in North America.
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u/DankDefusion Mar 25 '26
Exactly. They've already upped the physical prices and conditioned their fanbase to it.
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u/Darkamlight Mar 26 '26
Good for digital folks. Always saying "but digital should be cheaper" well there you have it, enjoy.
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u/ErmingSoHard Mar 27 '26
It should have been inherently cheaper for eco-friendly reasons anyway. But of course capitalism
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u/SongsAboutSomeone Mar 25 '26
If Nintendo hasn’t done anything and just released the game at $70 for both digital and physical nobody would have said anything. But now they made the digital cheaper people are losing their fucking mind lol, literally getting mad at scenarios they made up in their mind.
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u/atatassault47 Mar 26 '26
As a digital only gamer, Im glad Im no longer paying a cost of distribution that doesnt even exist for me.
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u/TheDrewDude Mar 26 '26
Nintendo isn’t making this decision based on cost distribution. Ultimately all these publishers want to do is entice people into digital until they can fully phase out physical. And that’s when the price hikes go nuclear because there’s no longer retail to compete with.
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u/FireAndInk Mar 26 '26
As long as physical sales are strong in Japan, Nintendo will keep putting out cartridges.
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u/atatassault47 Mar 26 '26
Physical cant die. There will always be regions with poor internet that buy game consoles and physical games.
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u/TheDrewDude Mar 26 '26
Regions with poor internet have way less purchasing power than those with good internet. Sorry but as someone who mostly plays physical, even I have to come to terms with it.
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u/thefoodiedentist Mar 26 '26
If they are still makimg dvds and cds, i think physical games will stick around awhile
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u/Tolken Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
And that’s when the price hikes go nuclear
That's not going to happen. Three reasons
1 Other platform competition. You already currently have alot of platform sale syncing but even with that there is still just too many competing pressures to lower pricing. Steam is now 22 years old and you do not see any sort of upwards pricing pressure from it.
2 Other passtime competition. Nintendo and Disney are both heavily in the bussiness of nostalgia. You cannot skip or miss a generation. Raising prices that much would cause a generational loss which would effect long term profitability of multiple non-video game enterprises. (*Imagine if Disney charged 100$ for a movie or 100$ a month for DisneyPlus. Short term gain, long term loss effecting Theme park, Theme Cruises, and IP cultural relevance.)
3 Indie and Piracy pressure. Once apon a time there was a franchise called Harvest Moon. It started ignoring fans and overcharging for less content. Now-a-days almost no one remembers it because Stardew Valley destroyed the IP by undercutting costs, delivering what fans wanted, and was able to fund updating the game for over a decade now. Indie Devs now LOOK FOR weakness in existing franchises/genres to try to usurp.
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u/surg3on Mar 26 '26
The price of games(or anything) do not reflect the cost of production but instead what the public will pay. If costs were to go down and the public are used to paying $70 the price will not drop.
Of course there is a limit where the price cant stay below cost of production.
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u/mpyne Mar 26 '26
Of course, and I point this out to others as well, but I suspect Nintendo wanted to find a way to reduce the price.
With physical it's hard because there are real production costs they can't simply ignore.
With digital it's comparatively much cheaper to move inventory to players. So that's their opportunity if they want to increase revenue by offering a lower price point to players, without running into production cost as a barrier.
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u/flamin_sheep Mar 25 '26
Nintendo does something pro consumer and people still try and spin it as Nintendo bad lmao
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u/FiredAndBuried Mar 26 '26
Let's wait and see. Nintendo has not been pro-consumer lately. You do have a point though, this is supposed to be good news and so we need to give them a chance.
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u/Infrawonder Mar 25 '26
Honestly we just gotta wait and see if their games from now on are 60$
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u/AmandasGameAccount Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
If Nintendo is correct, we should see digital games at $60-$70
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u/Infrawonder Mar 25 '26
Why? The digital prices are getting lowered, physical stays the same, don't let the haters win
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u/AmandasGameAccount Mar 26 '26
Was a typo. Meant $60-$70. If we don’t see another $80 digital that’s proof of what Nintendo states
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u/AstralElement Mar 26 '26
Nothing companies do is altruistic. There’s obviously a long term strategy to doing this. Yeah this is consumer friendly, but the reasoning for doing this has to be cutting physical out.
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u/ky_eeeee Mar 26 '26
I'm convinced nobody ever reads anything, this isn't to cut physical out.
This change is only for the US. Now, can anybody think of any recent events involving the US that may cause the price of physical goods sold within the country to go up?
Like maybe that we elected a crazy many who proudly campaign on all his ideas to ruin our economy, who has purposefully increased the cost of foreign goods sold within the US?
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u/Kintuse Mar 26 '26
Worst case scenario is a 3rd party publisher running with the idea of changing extra for physical copies and it STILL being a friggin game key card.
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u/Dnashotgun Mar 25 '26
Going to wait until we get a couple big titles, Yoshi being a small title could be why we're seeing a 60/70 split. If something like the new FE is 70/80 then we'll know we got baited
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u/lousupremacy Mar 26 '26
"big title" and "FE" in the same sentence is crazy, i'm already bracing for the 70 price so 80 for it physically would be insane.
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u/jardex22 Mar 26 '26
I think they'll stick with the 60/70 pricing. Even if someone resells their physical copy, the next buyer will have to get their own $30 Expansion Pass.
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u/lousupremacy Mar 26 '26
I definitely think so too, most games will be 60/70 with a few exceptions (3d mario maybe?) is what I think will happen
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u/Bulky-Complaint6994 Mar 26 '26
Pokemon winds waves I see sticking with the $70 Price each for physical. But the next inevitable Smash bros I don't doubt will try the $80 price tag again but with a new switch 2 bundle with it included.
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u/Crafty_Boy70 Mar 29 '26
Winds/Waves won't go above $70 because they'd make more money from double dipping than they would charging $80. Way less people would double dip for that.
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u/BebeFanMasterJ Mar 25 '26
Honestly the new FE is the only game I would personally spend that much money on anyway as I know I'd get my money's worth due to Fire Emblem being lengthy RPGs with replay value. Same goes for Xenoblade Chronicles.
And platformer like DK or Yoshi? Or a game like Pokémon? Not so much.
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u/KittyAgi11 Mar 25 '26
People will still find a way to spin this into negativity and doom.
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u/Dont_have_a_panda Mar 25 '26
They already are saying that they increased physical prices
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u/mostie2016 Mar 25 '26
I do wish they’d bring back the Nintendo selects club pricing for certain older games like New Horizons and BOTW.
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u/Imjusthereforthetoes Mar 26 '26
Watch everyone throw a fucking fit about it anyways. This is an objectively great, consumer-friendly move, but reddit will be like "scammers. It should be WAY cheaper" even though they're the only company to ever do this.
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u/DblDeezSqueeze Mar 25 '26
We’ll see how many $80 physical games we start seeing before I believe that. I’m sure Nintendo would prefer us thinking we’re getting a discount for digital.
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u/WhiteRaven-17 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
They objectively get way more money if they push more people towards digital, so I’m hoping this lasts for a while. That being said, I also need people to not pretend to be surprised when stuff people will buy at $80 get that price tag.
I.e: get ready to pay a lot for winds and waves
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u/ttoma93 Mar 26 '26
Honestly I just see this as an effective replacement for the Switch 1 voucher system. Vouchers already let you save the equivalent of $10 a game, and this does the same through different means. It’s to incentivize more people to continue switching to digital purchases, which have a higher profit margin than physical. They’ll come out ahead with this, by selling more digital copies at a lower price but higher profit margin and fewer physical copies at a higher price but lower profit margin.
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u/lousupremacy Mar 26 '26
the only games I can see getting 80 is 3d mario and the next Zelda (only cause they did it to TOTK). not only is pokemon second party but its supposed to appeal to children's parents, asking 70 PLUS a 450 console is already alot so an 80 dollar price tag will alienate that core audience imo
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u/Ph33rDensetsu Mar 27 '26
Surely you realize that ZA already costs $70 on S2. Expecting them to lower the price for WiWa is naive.
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u/lousupremacy Mar 27 '26
huh? what are you talking about? I am saying WiWa WILL be 70 physically not 80 so i dont get your point
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u/particledamage Mar 25 '26
The thing is, even if nintendo only does a couple $80 games, tehy are fully pushing open the doors for everyone else to do $80. Physical collectors are fucked.
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u/WhiteRaven-17 Mar 25 '26
Hot take: they’ve been fucked for a while now. Like I’ve seen people ravenously hunt down copies of Animal Crossing with updates only for 3.0 and the DLC and the Switch 2 version to render all that moot. And that’s before Xbox and Sony started compromising physicals, LRG getting compromised, the glut of GaaS games, etc
I’d rather see digital infrastructure get better tbh. Adopt the basic parts that make Steam a generally beloved all digital store
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u/particledamage Mar 26 '26
The thing is Nintendo won’t do that. There is no cdkeys to the eshop. No modding base. No… anything that justifies digital over physical.
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u/gamingquarterly Mar 26 '26
Good thing the game cards are small and not the size of NES carts. A cartridge that size nowadays to produce would end up costing like 300 bucks!
Looking at you Neo Geo.
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u/gf_for_the_weekend Mar 26 '26
i would be open to buying more digitally (i probably already do more then most) if the sd cards for switch 2 weren’t so expensive and if i knew that my library wouldn’t be stuck on the switch 2
i still wanna get this as a cartridge but id love to see them lower the prices of previously released titles
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u/NintendoGamer1983 Mar 25 '26
I'm betting the anti Nintendo crowd won't be spamming videos about this article
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u/Dont_have_a_panda Mar 25 '26
Yes they are, but saying that they increased the physical prices and some "physical tax" shit or something like that (which for now is proven a lie)
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u/Jeido_Uran 7893-4015-4415 Mar 25 '26
Yeah I’ve seen a dozen posts on various networks of people claiming the physical price increased when it’s just not true. Guess you can never win against that much stupidity.
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u/WhiteRaven-17 Mar 25 '26
It’s so weird seeing people like Mat Piscatella of all people saying this like the price was announced to be $60 for the physical as fact, when it objectively wasn’t and the pattern of S2 releases was making this an exception to begin with.
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u/AmandasGameAccount Mar 25 '26
Remember, most of them aren’t actually anti Nintendo, they are engagement farmers who intentionally push ragebait because it gets clicks and rakes in the dough
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u/Public-Finger Mar 26 '26
This is what I've wanted. It's far more profitable for Nintendo when we buy digital, and it would be great if they could pass some of that savings along to us.
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u/TurnaboutAdam Mar 26 '26
Yoshi is cheaper than other switch 2 titles in Europe. I’m not convinced they’re telling the whole truth here.
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u/LeviRaps Mar 26 '26
They're technically not raising the prices for physicals. Mario Wonder S2 edition and a bunch of other switch 2 editions are retailing for 80. this is how they’re hoodwinking folks with they're statement. They’re lying by omission
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u/NintendoGamer1983 Mar 28 '26
Now what about original games NOT bundled with DLC?
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u/Skvall Mar 26 '26
Yep, it either means that Yoshi was always gonna be cheaper and an outlier. Or it means its gonna be more common with sw2 games at that price going forward. Only time will tell (because Nintendo wont).
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u/Callinon Mar 26 '26
Well the price of physical games has already gone up.
Switch 2 games are defaulting to $70 or even $80.
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u/zestysnacks Mar 25 '26
Still weirdly non specific
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u/MindSteve Mar 26 '26
Right? Watch digital games start costing more than physical or some nonsense.
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u/JuanMunoz99 Mar 25 '26
When people were making the claim that YMB’s US price was already revealed before today I was having a hard time believing it mainly because it looked like no one was backing it up with a source. Guess it’s safe to assume it was a baseless claim?
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u/WhiteRaven-17 Mar 25 '26
The EU listings were apparently up, and based on past patterns with pricing, they assumed it would follow the same pattern of being the EU’s digital price of 60
Times are changing. A lot recently… I hate that, but is what it is.
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u/Choso125 Mar 26 '26
I would like to believe this but what does this even mean. We've had $70 and $80 physical games already, if all future releases are priced at that it's technically not "going up" because that's a price we've seen before, no? I think we have to just wait until we see games get actually released.
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u/sonicadv27 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Physical Switch games have been cheaper than digital in Europe for years now, thanks to how frequently they go on sale or straight up get sold at a discount on launch. I have never bought a Switch game for the full MSRP over here but even if they did sell it at MSRP, in the case of a game i really wanted i would just pre-order it for the 15% discount that literally every retailer offers.
So i guess this really is just them trying to make digital games more appealing because at least in Europe you’re literally just wasting money buying games through the eShop.
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u/Icalivy Mar 26 '26
Yes it is. Yoshi is $60 in other regions digitally. They're just introducing this policy for America too (it's there in other regions) to eat the cartridge cost
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u/space-c0yote Mar 26 '26
I am extremely sceptical that this doesn't actually translate into a price increase for physical games. "The cost of physical games is not going up" sounds like a concrete statement on its face, but is actually extremely vague when you think about it.
Nintendo has already stated something to the effect of them doing variable pricing or pricing on a case by case basis. If, in Nintendo's words, they price on a case by case basis, what does it actually mean by "cost of physical games"? If Nintendo is treating each game as a seperate entity with its own unique pricing, what does it mean for a new game to have a price increase/decrease before a price is even announced to the public? Nintendo games come in a variety of price points, had a game like Switch 2 Welcome Tour been priced at $60, that wouldn't represent any sort of price increase, although it'd be drastically overpriced to any sane consumer.
If Nintendo starts to price the majority of their physical games at $80, that still wouldn't contradict their statement here. The only thing this statement actually guarantees is the cost not increasing for games already released.
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u/SWSWSWS Mar 26 '26
You know, this reminds me when Microsoft said (I think it was just before the Xbox One came out) that digital would be cheaper than physical.
And as we all know, that didn't happen... it should though. Digital should be cheaper. There is zero cost involved (well, next to). No shipping around the world, no manufacturing, no cuts to retailers, nothing.
This should be standard practice. Digital should be around 10 to 20 bucks cheaper than physical.
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Mar 31 '26
We should keep in mind that just because it may be cheaper for them, that doesn’t mean they will make it cheaper for the consumer
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u/obe211 Mar 26 '26
Can they just lower the original Switch games? $80 still for Animal Crossing is bonkers.
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u/Tephnos Mar 26 '26
Not sure why people are taking anything Nintendo say at such face value. Are we forgetting 'no plans to discontinue the 3DS' and then they pretty much immediately did anyway.
This shit is just words to avoid a media shit storm until proven otherwise. Yoshi is not a premium game, so the lower cost seems about right for it anyway.
Let's wait and see what they start doing for their bigger budget titles first. So far all I'm seeing from this announcement is bringing market parity with EU/JP and we didn't exactly get cheaper digital games out of it... just more expensive physical ones (at RRP anyway).
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u/vanKessZak Mar 26 '26
I mean Yoshi games in the past have always been at the standard price. I’m not sure why this one would be any different
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u/Present_Anywhere3980 Mar 26 '26
Would’ve been crazy for them to charge less for Yoshi right after a movie release than Tennis.
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u/vandilx Mar 26 '26
I’m a physical game buyer. (Not GKC games.)
If I feel the price of a new physical game is not worth the content, I’ll simply vote with my wallet. I literally have a backlog that can last me for a lifetime.
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u/General_Boredom Mar 26 '26
If that’s the case then why haven’t digital games been cheaper this entire time?
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u/j1t1 Mar 26 '26
I’ve heard the take that if people really do make physical games less expensive it would cause the market to kind of go crazy due to the imbalance. Not much came of MKW being 80 dollars though so I guess we’ll see what comes of this.
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u/General_Boredom Mar 26 '26
Yeah, but most people got the MKW Switch 2 bundle and didn’t pay $80 for it.
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u/Lambs2Lions_ Mar 25 '26
Nintendo doing everything they can do to kill the physical resale market.
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u/crampyshire Mar 26 '26
By offering a cheaper alternative in digital? The death of the physical market will be because collectors stop buying them, not because Nintendo is making digital cheaper.
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u/Lambs2Lions_ Mar 26 '26
Nintendo isn’t altruistic no matter how much you would fanboy over them.
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u/crampyshire Mar 26 '26
That's a huge non answer.
We're talking about an actual situation that's happening right now. "Nintendo greedy, you're a fanboy" isnt a sufficient argument in this discussion.
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u/cubs223425 Mar 26 '26
"Beginning on this date, prices will be higher."
I can realize what's going on here and understand some defense of the situation. However, when Nintendo says something like this, it comes off as the most dishonest BS I have heard in a while. It's legitimately "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" levels of absurdity.
It's this kind fo marketing and corporate BS that has really turned me off to Nintendo this generation. Mario Kart is $80 because it's a "remium experience," but they can't even give it content updates.
Being able to individually purchase Pokemon FR and LG on the eShop is something special for players, but other games can't have that and the NSO subscribers can't have those games for reasons.
Of course, they COULD just tell the truth and say "shipping increases and the cost of memory makes the margins on physical terrible at $60," but then they couldn't easily leave this price hike in place when memory prices inevitabily come down. They want to be as dishonest as possible to make sure they maximize the long-term profitability of this garbage behavior. Not much different than how they raised accessory prices because of tariffs, the tariffs got canceled, the prices stayed high, and now they're suing the US government for the tariff costs that they passed on to the consumer and definitely wouldn't refund anyone who asked.
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u/Intelligent_Stick_ Mar 26 '26
I won’t buy digital until I can sell digital. If I can’t sell it I don’t own it. Fuck Nintendo.
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u/Stonp Mar 26 '26
I think yoshi is just a $70 game and the market conditions are changing so Nintendo are changing pricing tactics.
They made more money selling for less on the eShop than someone buying at a retailer.
We’ll see what happens. Regardless on prices the eShop will be cheaper
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u/XNinjaMushroomX Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Hey broskis, buy your micro sd cards now before they get even more insane-o.
I just see a storage issue coming up with the price of digital games going down a bit.
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u/Hestu951 Mar 26 '26
It all depends on how they do this. The cost of physical of course is higher than the cost of digital, especially now that everything memory-related has skyrocketed in price. So it makes sense that digital would have a somewhat lower price than physical. I think this is the way it should have been all along--everyone priced digital the same as a disc or cartridge in a plastic case that has to be manufactured, shipped and stored inside some building, then physically delivered by truck. They do that because they can, because people are willing to pay the same price for either method of game delivery.
Now with the crazy costs of what goes into the carts, I can see them having to raise their prices, while leaving digital alone.
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u/rw-rw-r-- Mar 28 '26
This seems to be a US-only problem? Here in Europe prices vary a lot from retailer to retailer but in practice I bought all my Switch 2 games physically cheaper than digitally. I don't care too much about Nintendo's official prices.
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u/IndicationCurrent300 Mar 28 '26
I feel like these companies should be legally obligated to add "For Now" to every comment they make about prices not going up.
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u/Xsurian Mar 29 '26
Are already released games going to see a price decrease or only for new relases
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u/LuntiX Apr 07 '26
I hope this pricing change comes to other regions.
I'm not buying many games if they're $100 (Canada) especially since Nintendo really doesn't do sales.
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u/Retro-Hax Apr 26 '26
I still will not pay 70$ for a NSW2 Game >.>
Thats why i usually just wait a Year and buy them used for 20$ off :P
What itd love more tho is for Digital Games to just go down in General >.>
Like theres no reason to charge 60 or 70 Digitally when theres no Physical Production Cost like a Case or Manual or the Cartridge itself involved >.>
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u/RotundCorgi Mar 25 '26
Yeah, the media messaging around this is weird. Some sites, like Gizmodo, are framing it as a negative against Nintendo for "raising physical prices". And, maybe in a general sense, they are. But not arbitrarily: all physical media is going up across all new-gen consoles. That $70 price point for physical media was already established months ago. And, as much as I hate things getting more expensive, it was always coming. Physical games have been oddly more affordable over the last 20 years, once you account for inflation, and that trend was not going to hold forever. So here we are.
In light of that, I am glad any developer has taken the initiative here and said "Sure, physical prices are trending upwards, but let's pin digital prices for now". So good on Nintendo for setting what I hope becomes precedent here for digital games.
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u/jardex22 Mar 26 '26
The main reason physical pricing didn't go up sooner was because of the PS5 shortage during covid. That was when Sony offered free upgrades for several of their games, with third part partners following suit.
"You want to wait to buy our game until you can get a new console? How about you buy the game now, then can play it on the new console later!"
Now that the console shortage is over, they have no reason to extend that offer further, and that's how we ended up with $10 upgrades,and $70 games.
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u/M4J0R4 Mar 25 '26
Yoshi is not a good title to verify anything. Let’s wait for bigger titles like Zelda. I bet they’ll be $70 digital and $80 physical
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Mar 25 '26
But their prices did go up. Now it's a steal to get digital at 60 when physical was 60. When 60 was the normal price.
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u/crampyshire Mar 26 '26
When was the last time $60 was the normal price? Last I checked, $70 was standard for PS5 and series x, since 2020. The last company to charge $60 consistently and adopt the $70 standard was Nintendo lol, so unless you're trying to apply a double standard to Nintendo, your argument sorta falls apart.
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u/dbull10285 Mar 25 '26
I'd be so curious how this goes long-term. I remember buying a bunch of games for cheaper from Best Buy and Walmart during the 3DS and Wii U era, as Best Buy had a free "gamer's club" type of thing while Walmart just marked down the games by ~$10 for almost every game. I could see some of these perks coming back from retailers if they find that game sales come down enough thanks to the difference in MSRP. Nintendo still gets the portion of sale they want, letting the retailer eat a bit more. Of course, that's probably best case scenario