Nintendo will start charging more for physical Switch 2 games than digital copies
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A year ago, I would have railed that a $10 premium is highway robbery, but I'm sure they are getting hit by the RAM and flash shortage like everyone else.
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“Well, yes. Relative to our new, updated pricing, digital copies are less expensive. The system works!”
/s (for those with sarcasm impairment).
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I feel a lot of this is a matter of perspective, and that the headline I saw of "Nintendo is raising prices of Switch 2 game cartridges starting in May" is somewhat deceiving. First, the announcement itself only says that the MSRP of digital will be different from physical. Second, as mentioned in article, the only current example of this with the new Yoshi game has the digital ($60) actually being cheaper than the current typical MSRP of a Switch 2 cartridge ($70). If anything, one could say this is what everyone asked for of digital games being cheaper than physical (though you could also argue this just eliminates the $10 increase that Switch 2 games got).
Anyways, I'm surprised this price differentiation finally happened, and from Nintendo of all places. I had always assumed that the prices were kept constant because the Platforms didn't want to undercut the Big Box retailers and possibly make them angry.
Anyways, I'm surprised this price differentiation finally happened, and from Nintendo of all places. I had always assumed that the prices were kept constant because the Platforms didn't want to undercut the Big Box retailers and possibly make them angry.
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In related news, I’m still not spending that much for a game. I do love Nintendo games, but their pricing model needs a serious realignment.
Even if I accept the initial launch price, the knowledge that this is Nintendo and they never put stuff on any significant sales ever greatly colors my opinion.
If something launches on Steam for $70, there’s a pretty good bet that in a few years it could be had for much less. If Nintendo launches something at $70, you’ll be lucky to ever see it below $70.
EDIT: added a bit more for context and clarity
Even if I accept the initial launch price, the knowledge that this is Nintendo and they never put stuff on any significant sales ever greatly colors my opinion.
If something launches on Steam for $70, there’s a pretty good bet that in a few years it could be had for much less. If Nintendo launches something at $70, you’ll be lucky to ever see it below $70.
EDIT: added a bit more for context and clarity
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On one hand I totally get it that physical should be more expensive than digital for a myriad of reasons, but digital should be cheaper because physical was the baseline until digital distribution became mainstream enough 10-15 years ago. Digital shouldn't be as expensive as physical used to be and physical becomes more expensive, that's just price gouging. The whole "games haven't kept up with inflation" makes this argument a little more complicated, but this is the opposite direction we should be going in terms of pricing.
I try to avoid digital whenever reasonable and already barely buy games at full price, so this is a huge hit for me, but digital pricing has definitely been screwed over even though it's been rising in popularity, especially since everything not on PC is a closed platform.
I try to avoid digital whenever reasonable and already barely buy games at full price, so this is a huge hit for me, but digital pricing has definitely been screwed over even though it's been rising in popularity, especially since everything not on PC is a closed platform.
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The ability to buy, sale, and or trade a purchased copy, or the company acknowledging that it is a purchase with full First Sale rights, should not have the penalty of a price increase.
I would have more sympathy for the differences in material and distribution costs if there were actual real protections of continued access, non-revocable and transferable ownership of copies. Otherwise, this is just a false pretext to put price premium on the ability to buy/sell/trade something that has been purchased.
I would have more sympathy for the differences in material and distribution costs if there were actual real protections of continued access, non-revocable and transferable ownership of copies. Otherwise, this is just a false pretext to put price premium on the ability to buy/sell/trade something that has been purchased.
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It hurts me that physical media is more and more being pushed back against.
For example, I love the feeling of searching out a Blu-ray and inserting it in a player. It just feels so much more deliberate and satisfying, being more in the moment and making the act of watching something slightly more meaningful. I feel like needing to put in a little amount of effort is like a buildup to the main event. And the fact that Blu-ray is the highest possible quality you can get (it’s a whole other dimension of quality compared to compression artifact riddled streaming) is also a big factor.
Which is also why consumer hardware being less available and more expensive should be cause for alarm to everyone. In a worst case future, for most people, only streaming games might be an option because owning a console or PC would be too expensive. And there you would have the same issues as with Netflix and co. Everything being purely digital and in the control of so few (with rarely our best interests in mind) worries me.
I know this is slightly off topic and like an “old man shouting at clouds” comment, but it was related and I felt like expressing my woes a little, so I hope you can excuse this here (not really that) old lady and her antics.
For example, I love the feeling of searching out a Blu-ray and inserting it in a player. It just feels so much more deliberate and satisfying, being more in the moment and making the act of watching something slightly more meaningful. I feel like needing to put in a little amount of effort is like a buildup to the main event. And the fact that Blu-ray is the highest possible quality you can get (it’s a whole other dimension of quality compared to compression artifact riddled streaming) is also a big factor.
Which is also why consumer hardware being less available and more expensive should be cause for alarm to everyone. In a worst case future, for most people, only streaming games might be an option because owning a console or PC would be too expensive. And there you would have the same issues as with Netflix and co. Everything being purely digital and in the control of so few (with rarely our best interests in mind) worries me.
I know this is slightly off topic and like an “old man shouting at clouds” comment, but it was related and I felt like expressing my woes a little, so I hope you can excuse this here (not really that) old lady and her antics.
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I could get behind this if the physical release was an actual ROM, but if it’s just a game key on a flash drive that will eventually fail then it’s one more thing making me wonder if I even want a Switch 2. (I’ve got a Switch, but was holding out for the inevitable OLED.)
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It’s weird how the conversation changes when you move from PC to console. Most people buy digital on Steam without a second thought because the convenience and pricing makes sense, but then on a console physical media is suddenly some sacred thing.
Yeah the digital only future has its downsides with preservation and games disappearing which sucks, but that’s just the reality for the industry now. Why do consoles have to live in a different paradigm?
For full transparency, I used to always buy physical because I liked the trade games in at GameStop and EB games but those stores are pretty much disappearing and they're not very pleasant to go into anymore. I also got sick of switching cartridges around and not having everything instantly accessible on a device. So yeah I'm a digital convert.
I'm happy if people have the option to buy physical but I shouldn't have to pay for it if I buy digital. If you want the box and the resale value then fine, just pay the true cost of it. If Nintendo is finally passing those digital savings on then it's about time.
Yeah the digital only future has its downsides with preservation and games disappearing which sucks, but that’s just the reality for the industry now. Why do consoles have to live in a different paradigm?
For full transparency, I used to always buy physical because I liked the trade games in at GameStop and EB games but those stores are pretty much disappearing and they're not very pleasant to go into anymore. I also got sick of switching cartridges around and not having everything instantly accessible on a device. So yeah I'm a digital convert.
I'm happy if people have the option to buy physical but I shouldn't have to pay for it if I buy digital. If you want the box and the resale value then fine, just pay the true cost of it. If Nintendo is finally passing those digital savings on then it's about time.
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Speaking as someone who buys almost everything digitally now, PC or console, I certainly appreciate the convenience of never having to store, carry, or swap cartridges or discs.
That being said, I do think the proposition on PC vs console is a bit different, or at least has historically been different. For the most part, buying a game digitally on PC is something "portable" - you can play that game on any system that will run the bits, including different types of hardware and even different OSes. Given the openness of the platforms, there's less of an acute concern over preservation and being able to play the game in the future when support begins falling off. You'll probably be able to modify the game in some way to get around those problems as they come up.
On consoles, historically buying digitally has meant tying what you bought to a much more restricted ecosystem, and even to a particular set of hardware. Nintendo, until the Switch, was a particularly egregious example of this. So if you're beholden to those restrictions anyway, the upsides of digital become less attractive and the downsides more acute. Historically console games have also been more of a communal/family thing - multiple people wanting to play the same game on the same or different devices, bringing your games to a friend's house, etc. - making the physical aspect more enduring than on PCs that are more of a "single user" thing in many households.
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Can't resell digital copies and you never really own them.......worth the extra $10 for the physical copy.
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Simple - on PC, not only do you have total control over the machine playing the game, but depending where you but said game, you can move it around however you want. Even with Steam you can make backups and go offline to still play. You also have more ownership with the games, with modding being easier.
That's not the case with consoles, and therefore the only real way you can have any semblance of ownership on the media you get for it is via physical media.
They said, I do think it should be possible to sell a digital copy of a game you own just as if it were a physical copy, which is something Steam doesn't do.
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Maybe because I've been a Steam user since 2007 or so (whenever the Orange Box came out), and to date I have never lost the ability to play a Steam game that I paid for--not counting online-only games whose services as shut down.
OTOH, I do have a number of Wii games I purchased from Nintendo's digital shop back in the day that I can never play again, because the e-store was shut down and that particular Wii unit which was tied to the entitlements stopped working.
So I have very good reason, IMO, for being skeptical about going to a digital-only landscape in the Nintendo ecosystem. I have a number of DS and 3DS digital games purchased, too, from a shop that has shut down. Nintendo still ostensibly lets me re-download them onto another 3DS if I sign in with the correct account...for the moment. Once that too is permanently shuttered, I'll be increasingly wished I had purchased a physical cartridge of Radiant Historia back in the day, instead of picking up the digital copy on sale years ago.
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I'm not in the US, but I thought 70 USD was already the standard pricing for Switch 2 games there. So this would be a 10 USD discount for the digital copy
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They really want to do everything they can to kill off physical sales so they can sell you the same game repeatedly. They're already charging 20 bucks for 25 year old GBA games that could also be a part of their existing GBA switch online app.
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Nintendo said when they announced them that they had no plans to use Game-Key Cards for any Nintendo-developed titles. The closest exception yet is Pokémon Pokopia, but that's a primarily Koei Tecmo / Omega Force developed game using Nintendo IP (Game Freak is also listed as a developer, but given that it's basically Dragon Quest Builders 2 with Pokémon, I wonder how much they did).
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Every Nintendo published Switch 2 physical game has had the full game on the cartridge with the exception of Pokopia (which is technically a third party game that's distributed by Nintendo in the US).
Third party games on Steam and the eShop are roughly equal in price (which is set by individual publishers) as can be easily verified by checking Deku Deals or Deals.gg for both current and historical prices. Nintendo's 1st party games are discounted less frequently, but pretty routinely around March 10th each year. (As for Valve's first party games, well, that revenue stream is primarily loot box/F2P driven and not really comparable.)
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Absolutely maddening, you buy the "physical game" and immediately have to download the entire game.
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One more thing, it’s actually a relief that my Switch digital library transferred over and works on the Switch 2. They actually play better on the new hardware because of that handheld boost mode, so seeing them add value to the digital stuff instead of just wiping the slate gives Nintendo a morsel of trust for now. I know they could easily break it or change their minds next time, but they did us right this time at least.
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Nintendo actually has pretty frequent sales on first-party games (digital) these days. Sales of $15 - $30 off is not that unusual, especially during this last year. Black Friday and Christmas is a great time to stock up on games on sale. And game retailers will often have first-party physical Switch games on sale for less than Nintendo sells them for.
Sure, they're not Steam-level discounts, but the days of Nintendo never dropping the prices on their first-party games has actually been over for years now.
Also, in case you weren't aware, you can add a game to your Wish List from the eShop by clicking the heart on the game's product page. Then, whenever that game goes on sale, it'll send you an email notice - this works for any game, first-party or third-party. I've gotten lots of awesome deals this way.
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Yes and no. Definitely not from the legacy developing houses. For indie studios, they tend to be a lot cheaper now. The lack of physical distribution is part of that, (though there's Limited Run making... limited runs of certain popular indie titles), though another part is the indie studios have fewer developer costs compared to the big "AAA" games. Sometimes this gets exaggerated a bit, as in the case of Clare Obscura (or however that's spelled) which also had a lot of outsourcing to help it's development. But, even in those cases, they're running cheaper than the gigantic games from the big players. There's also the occasional title where it's hard to say just what the budget was. How do you really track the full cost of someone making Stardew Valley in their spare time? Time is money, but not all time is equally valued.
It's part of the reason I've been slipping away more and more from the big dev houses and their games.
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The headline is backwards. Digital versions of Switch 2 games will cost less than their physical counterparts currently cost. Nintendo is reducing the price of digital games.
Edit: I hope this gets applied retroactively as first-party new games from Nintendo for the Switch 2 have been $70 for both physical and digital copies.
Edit: I hope this gets applied retroactively as first-party new games from Nintendo for the Switch 2 have been $70 for both physical and digital copies.
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I don't think we can know that yet. It is true that this is the the first $60 first-party game that Nintendo has released for the Switch 2, but it could have been targeting a lower price all along. Most first-party Switch 1 games were $60-$70, but there were occasional $50 games. We'll have to see how pricing trends in the future, particularly if they change the price of already released games.
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I always thought it was completely illogical that console games available both physically and digitally were always priced the same between the two options, even though digital implies a lot less overhead.
Glad that Nintendo is finally addressing this long-standing nonsense. Hopefully Sony will follow as well.
Glad that Nintendo is finally addressing this long-standing nonsense. Hopefully Sony will follow as well.
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As a physical game collector I agree with that. Digital copies should have a cost advantage over a physical game. I would even go a step further. Why not delay the physical release for let's say 3 months and provide a physical copy that has all the critical patches integrated on the cartridge.
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Whenever people complain that games are getting too expensive, I would point out that in the 80s we were paying $50, and most of them were complete garbage. That is like $150 today, which represents the cash grabs at the highest end for super ultra deluxe editions, not the average game, which is far cheaper to buy and much costlier to produce.
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They still offer re-downloads even for the Wii. Up to the moment Nintendo announces being unable to re-download digital games is when we should throw blame, but before that it's fearmongering. You're more likely to have these physical cartridges stop working at the moment.
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I remember when Steam was new, reading about how Valve planned to sell Half-Life 2 themselves on Steam, but have EA publish it physically in stores. However, despite the lowered overhead of a digital game, Half-Life 2 would be the same price both digitally and physically. Why? At the time, I'd read that EA was angry at Valve's original plan to sell Half-Life 2 for less money digitally, and told them, "Oh NO, you will NOT undercut us!"
So because of the physical publisher refusing to be undercut by the developer/digital publisher, there was no discount.
Now, there finally is the discount that I feel digital games should have. I confess, I buy digital anyway because I like having all my games in one spot instead of having to swap physical cards/CDs/etc. Still, I think this is overall a good thing... as long as it means we're actually getting a discount instead of physical merely costing more.
Let's see if any other companies get on board with this, and if so, in which direction - raising cost of physical or lowering the cost of digital.
So because of the physical publisher refusing to be undercut by the developer/digital publisher, there was no discount.
Now, there finally is the discount that I feel digital games should have. I confess, I buy digital anyway because I like having all my games in one spot instead of having to swap physical cards/CDs/etc. Still, I think this is overall a good thing... as long as it means we're actually getting a discount instead of physical merely costing more.
Let's see if any other companies get on board with this, and if so, in which direction - raising cost of physical or lowering the cost of digital.
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In standard Ars fashion, there appear to be A/B titles. Based on the URL some people are seeing “Nintendo to start charging more for physical Switch 2 games than digital copies”, which is perhaps technically true but definitely misleading. However, the title I’m seeing is “Nintendo is raising prices of Switch 2 game cartridges starting in May” which goes way past just misleading, IMO. Physical is still the same $70 as other Switch 2 exclusives and digital is back down to $60.
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If you play the same game, getting the same experience on the same hardware, then is it absolutely logical that you get a discount for playing it, because it's a few years later than others ?
"Early adopters should pay a premium !", sure ; but "Early adopters should get a discount because they have to suffer bugs until the patches come!"
If you buy a brand new Toyota 3 years after the model was released, do you get a 40% discount ?
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The time frames for peak apocalypse moments are in the fall, and then after the new congress gets in and starts impeaching Trump (Mar-a-Lago's congressional district flipped from red to blue in a special election, in fucking FLORIDA, which gives a huge signal of what the fall elections will look like, especially with Trump running at about 34% approval, and 62% disapproval, last I looked)
The wild card is the fall of AI, which has the potential to write new depths of economic ruin exceeding those of about 100 years ago, given the sudden disappearance of "cash" from the economy it will result in.
So, as long as you're relatively healthy now, you should make it that far.
I don't see raising the prices of cartridges on one gaming system to be especially apocalyptic, myself. But it's one of those things that piled up on top of other similar things adds a teeny amount of weight to the load the camel of economic stability is carrying. But I think there are larger straws that will break it. This is kind of a blip. But never fear, that earth-shattering kaboom is getting closer.
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It’s only really a vocal minority. 80+% of console game sales are digital. It’s less than that for Nintendo, around 60%, but the typical person plays a game and then moves on, not worry about whether they’ll still be able to play it in 20 years.
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I'm still salty that Grid Autosports (the best/only simcade on OG Switch) had an update sometime in 2022 to remove Sepang and COTA from the game.
Other than that, I really like being able to gift my nephews a game they can actually touch. Oh, and sharing physical games is also nice.
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