Nintendo will start charging more for physical Switch 2 games than digital copies

The first physical game affected will cost $10 more than a digital copy.

See full article...

 

[BirdOcean]

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.

The typical person, I suspect, moves on from 90%+ of the things they try, and only revisits the 10%- or so they really like, and can get upset if their favorites don't work anymore.

As a kid, I was happy to leave my NES behind and move on to the Super NES, and then to do the same and move on to the Nintendo 64, with no regard for playing the old games. Nostalgia eventually led me to emulation...

But besides that, I remember when my older brother decided to play the original first Legend of Zelda for the NES one day (a game that became a favorite of his for a long time before Breath of the Wild took its spot). The game could no longer save! (The built-in battery stops working after about 5 years.) He had no choice but to play it all the way through in a single sitting. And not bump the machine by accident lest the game freeze up, as the NES was notoriously finicky, especially its cartridges.

Anyway, I suspect like how most people just watch the shows currently on TV and move on, not caring if they disappear from the air, except if they have an absolute favorite they really want to rewatch - the same is likely true for most people for most things.

But when we want to revisit that old favorite? It had damn well better work!

 

[Marlor_AU]

But when we want to revisit that old favorite? It had damn well better work!

Unfortunately, with the prevalence of "day one" patches, physical versions of games aren't necessarily guaranteed to work anymore if the update servers are offline. You'll end up hunting for patches to get the game into a playable state, then find the site with the patches invariably has a copy of the full game release as well.

Nintendo's first-party games are the exception to this and, by and large, the mainline Mario and Zelda games generally ship in a playable form. So I still tend to buy those as a physical release. But for most other developers, the physical release simply provides an illusion of game preservation. If you ever tried to play that cartridge on a brand new machine without the game patches, you'd probably find an unplayable mess (or in some cases, a message telling you to download a mandatory "day one" patch).

 

[BigOlBlimp]

I vaguely remember people saying digital distribution would make games cheaper

Which one costs less as per the article?

 

[siliconaddict]

Don't care. I stopped supporting Nintendo when they started threatening to lob lawsuits at emulation developers. Who BTW didn't distribute keys with their software. You had to BYO for that. So Nintendo wouldn't have had a foot to stand on. But that doesn't matter as the cost of going up against Nintendo is not possible for your average person.
So yeah. Not a dime to that company including the upcoming Mario movie.

 

[GenialBlackMan]

Nintendo confirmed that physical game prices are not going up.

IGN link

"The cost of physical games is not going up.

"This means that when Nintendo sells digital versions of Nintendo published games exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2 to consumers in the U.S., those prices will have an MSRP that is lower than their physical counterparts.

"Retail partners set their own prices for physical and digital games, and pricing for each title may vary."

 

[RedSox]

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.

Technically just saying "Blu-ray" means one is referring to the high definition (1920x1080) disc format.

However, the highest possible quality is with Ultra HD Blu-Ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-Ray)

 

[jm_leviathan]

In practice, cartridge copies of recently released Switch games tend to be available slightly cheaper than digital copies, owing to competition amongst retailers, so any official discrepancy may do little more than restore parity between the two.

In a world where physical media is clearly on the way out and real ownership with it, I'm willing to pay a small premium to kick that particular can down the road a little, at least if we're talking real, content-complete cartridges. It's more palatable than Microsoft not giving Forza Horizon 5 a physical release at all on PS5, or shipping what are basically Game Key Card discs that require an internet connection to download most of the actual game data, as in the case of Indiana Jones.

 

[Strategos777]

For those saying the nonsense that "everything is getting too expensive" I'll please remind you that $60 today is less than $30 in 1995... when I was paying more than $70 plus tax for games, the equivalent of $150 in today's money.

Games are cheaper than ever before in history. Y'all just aren't adjusting for inflation. Just take all prices and divide by two to remember what it costs in 1995 dollars, which is probably what you are thinking of.

 

[Strategos777]

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.

You are not taking into account archivists, restoration and preservation efforts, and the fact that in an oxygen atmosphere everything oxidizes. There is no advantage of any kind to enduser owned physical media. Is suppose you CAN argue that digital movies are compressed, but to 99% of people (me included) the difference is undetectible. I'm running a 4K laser projector and literally can't tell the difference between 4K digital copies and physical discs.

"Only streaming" is not likely to be the future because people like to own things and can simply refuse to rent them by streaming. Suggesting that digital copies mean ONLY streaming is a false narrative and just flat-out ignoring digital ownership. Concerns about corporate control of digital distribution, again, ignore the fact that digital security is ALWAYS bypassed in time, and in 20 years no one is going to stop you from downloading a Switch game and putting it on some portable storage device to play the game you purchased 20 years ago. You are worrying about a future that's impossible.

If you don't believe me, look at PS2 and Dreamcast and Saturn and DS games. Oh no! The games are too expensive to buy! The discs and carts are all oxidizing and don't work anymore! What WILL we do???? Buy a Saroo, a SummerKart, an ODE, a hard drive kit, and load the ENTIRE library onto a disc and play it easier than discs ever were. You are literally worried about nothing.

 

[Strategos777]

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.)

Yes and no. THIRD PARTY Switch games are like $2 all the time. Nintendo FIRST PARTY games usually NEVER go on sale. That's why I don't own any of them. You can buy Mark Kart for $60, or Sonic Kart for $30. You can buy Donkey Kong Country Tropic Freeze for $60, or Sonic Superstars for $30. The only reason to buy Nintendo First Party games is if you are a fanboy and don't mind Nintendo ripping you off.

 

[Rosyna]

Yeah, as expected, Nintendo has explicitly said cartridge prices aren’t going up, digital prices are going down.

"The cost of physical games is not going up.

"This means that when Nintendo sells digital versions of Nintendo published games exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2 to consumers in the U.S., those prices will have an MSRP that is lower than their physical counterparts.

"Retail partners set their own prices for physical and digital games, and pricing for each title may vary."

https://www.ign.com/articles/ninten...-difference-for-yoshi-and-the-mysterious-book

 

[alansh42]

For those saying the nonsense that "everything is getting too expensive" I'll please remind you that $60 today is less than $30 in 1995... when I was paying more than $70 plus tax for games, the equivalent of $150 in today's money.

Games are cheaper than ever before in history. Y'all just aren't adjusting for inflation. Just take all prices and divide by two to remember what it costs in 1995 dollars, which is probably what you are thinking of.

Yeah, I was going to stop yelling at clouds for a minute and bring that up. In 1982 the crappy Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man was $30. That's over $100 today for 4096 bytes of code.

 

[cfenton]

The cynic in me thinks that this game being $60 digital and $70 physical is just a cover so they don't get bad press. By the time the next big game comes out it will be $70 digital and $80 physical.

 

[Juggernaut_408]

Nintendo sucks! Greedy mofo’s!!! I’m getting rid of my S2. They are increasing prices for everything and making them standard with other gaming platforms.

 

[WhiskersWithClaws]

Nintendo is reducing its digital games by $10 but keeping the price of its physical games the same all the while most Switch 2 physical cartridges won't actually contain the game but a digital key that unlocks a digital game which must be downloaded.

Huh.

 

[Alt-X]

I’m done with Nintendo, moving to a handheld PC was the best move ever.

 

[alphacorvus]

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.

Also consider the effects of data-capped internet in the year 2026 still being a thing. On PC there's no choice; on console I will buy physical copies of games whenever I can so I can lower my cap hit. At a cost of $50/mo to make the cap go away, that's an entire game, or close to it. And as a bonus, if I don't like the game, I can sell it later or give it to a friend to play.

The calculus changes a bit if physical games are going to be $10 more but it's still worth considering.

 

[Spiderman10]

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 could see a lawsuit around your points here.

 

[chucklepie2]

Knowing Nintendo, I'm very surprised they didn't keep the price of physical and lower the price of digital

Does the rise also include the passkey version?

 

[Marlor_AU]

Knowing Nintendo, I'm very surprised they didn't keep the price of physical and lower the price of digital

That's essentially what happened. The new Yoshi game is releasing at the same price as recent Switch 2 physical releases ($70), but is $10 cheaper if bought from the digital store. Existing Switch 2 releases will stay at the current $70 or $80 price-points.

This is cementing the price-rise we've already seen on Switch 2 releases, but there are no indications that the price will rise above the current $70-80.

In fact, Nintendo has confirmed that physical games will not see a price rise as a result of this decision (beyond that already seen for Switch 2 titles).

 

[Nihilus]

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.

Honestly the entire "games haven't kept up with inflation" angle always irks me somewhat. Inflation is a measure of price changes for a collection of goods over time, it's not a target for a specific industry.

In software development where the majority of your costs are fixed (the initial development) this is especially true. The variable costs for physical production and distribution used to take a sizable chunk of revenue, now not only is that usually <30% (far less for Nintendo with their own store) but those fixed costs are being amortized over a much larger number of sales too thanks to the market growing.

A lot of big games publishers and CEOs pushed the inflation angle recently to try and justify price hikes to ~$70 but realistically that was primarily necessary due to greed with a very healthy dose of overspending and high profile failures after they tried irrationally making every game into the next big live service.

 

[DarKnyht]

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.

I’ll point out again that it is a deceptive idea to compare decades this way. Sure games were $50 then, but cost of living was way lower (most of your paycheck didn’t go to just cover basic necessities) and wages were only just beginning to stagnate. You cannot just look at game prices and say, it was so expensive. I also paid $2 for gas and milk, my rent was a fraction of what is paid today, and I could buy a working used car for $800. It is also ignoring the fact those cartridges came on expensive ROM chips and prices cratered with the introduction of cheaper CD based media with the PS1 (while ROM based N64 stayed expensive).

Please stop making this horrible one dimensional comparison. Gaming companies are not starving, but your purchasing power has been taken from you by the rich who effectively pay you less while expecting more work and scheme to take more of your money for everything.

 

[Hazrahel]

Greedtendo strikes again...

After the first party costing 10$ more at NSW2 launch, now they are asking for 10$ more for a physical copy... On average that's about 35% more expensive price tag for a physical copy since last generation...

 

[ThisWasSparta]

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?

They don't? I would still be happily buying/collecting PC games CD-ROMS if they were still being made. I stopped when they became plastic boxes with steam installers/keys inside. I was annoyed by that then as I am about this now.

 

[StuBeck]

I vaguely remember people saying digital distribution would make games cheaper

It is. This was a poorly translated statement from Nintendo. Digital games are decreasing in price because Nintendo overpriced them at launch. Physical games are staying the same price. They've since issued a correction to this to make it more clear what they actually meant.

Yes, this issue is bizarre that no one proof read the release before they did it.

 

[Dragonmaster Lou]

No one likes it when prices go up -- I get that. But even at $70, physical games are still a bargain compared to when I was growing up. As a teen in the early 90s, your typical console games cost between $50-$70 at launch even back then, which comes out to $116-$173 in today's money.

But of course, as others stated, it's not that physical game prices are going up, it's that digital is going down. I'd still choose physical over digital for various reasons, but again, looking at today's prices, I still think they are a bargain compared to what they used to be.

 

[singularity6]

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.

Computers no longer have optical drives by default (custom builds only.) Physical copies of PC games disappeared a long time ago. We have no choice.

On the other hand, Nintendo and Sony have killed the online stores for all of their older systems. PSP, Vita, DS, 3DS, etc... I can no longer access the games I purchased on those stores. If I lose my files, they're gone for good.

 

[motang]

From my understanding, the physical game prices was not going to go up, just the MSRP for digital games was going to be less than that of physical.
source

 

[sword_9mm]

For those saying the nonsense that "everything is getting too expensive" I'll please remind you that $60 today is less than $30 in 1995... when I was paying more than $70 plus tax for games, the equivalent of $150 in today's money.

Games are cheaper than ever before in history. Y'all just aren't adjusting for inflation. Just take all prices and divide by two to remember what it costs in 1995 dollars, which is probably what you are thinking of.

You can scream inflation all you want but when folk's pay isn't going up then we have problems.

Sure inflation. I should be making 6 figures today but hey; inflation seems to only work on things we need, not our actual salaries.

Games are just a tiny tip of the mess we're in.

 

[Gunman]

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.

I'll add, there's a big second-hand market for first-party Nintendo games. Most Switch games for sale on my local equivalent of Craigslist are first-party titles.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

The typical person, I suspect, moves on from 90%+ of the things they try, and only revisits the 10%- or so they really like, and can get upset if their favorites don't work anymore.

As a kid, I was happy to leave my NES behind and move on to the Super NES, and then to do the same and move on to the Nintendo 64, with no regard for playing the old games. Nostalgia eventually led me to emulation...

But besides that, I remember when my older brother decided to play the original first Legend of Zelda for the NES one day (a game that became a favorite of his for a long time before Breath of the Wild took its spot). The game could no longer save! (The built-in battery stops working after about 5 years.) He had no choice but to play it all the way through in a single sitting. And not bump the machine by accident lest the game freeze up, as the NES was notoriously finicky, especially its cartridges.

Anyway, I suspect like how most people just watch the shows currently on TV and move on, not caring if they disappear from the air, except if they have an absolute favorite they really want to rewatch - the same is likely true for most people for most things.

But when we want to revisit that old favorite? It had damn well better work!

Funnily enough, while those batteries are only rated for about 5 years, most of my NES games with battery backup STILL were holding save data right up until last year, when I finally bit the bullet and swapped out ALL of them one by one, complete with battery holders and little "antenna" sticking out to clip on for in-line battery to "hold" a save alive for the few seconds it takes to swap out a battery in the future. More impressive is just how long those ROM chips have lasted. I think in all my collection I've seen exactly ONE game with a bad ROM chip, a copy of Final Fantasy 1 with some corrupt characters.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

It is. This was a poorly translated statement from Nintendo. Digital games are decreasing in price because Nintendo overpriced them at launch. Physical games are staying the same price. They've since issued a correction to this to make it more clear what they actually meant.

Yes, this issue is bizarre that no one proof read the release before they did it.

Wow if that's the case then reporter translation REALLY needs to get on the ball with this sort of thing. I shudder to think the number of public statements people keep treating as gospel from Miyamoto or some other Japanese developer which might turn out to have been a horrible mistranslation the whole time. I suppose if nothing else, in the age of the internet where word count isn't a limiting factor, it'd be a good idea to include both the original words and the translation, so if someone wants to take those words and get a second translation elsewhere, they can do so. This is less necessary when the original interview is already recorded as a publicly available video, but more necessary when the interview was done without a recording.

 

[RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha]

I think this is a poorly worded and misleading title. The physical copies are staying the same price ($70), it's the digital copies that are getting $10 cheaper.

Also, the "physical" copies aren't always a Full Game on cartridge. as some Switch 2 titles only come with a small Game Key Card, that you still need to download the game. Its just a key in a storage case creating the illusion you own it. Or a code to play the game, no cartridge or Key Card.

Also, its sadly inline with PSN/Xbox titles (US$69.99 - $US79.99) The point of getting the Switch 2 was that game titles were cheaper and fun for most. AAA titles will always be premium, but atleast the lesser known studios (indies are around US$29.99 - US$39.99).

 

[zarakon]

In the context of today, the physical game prices are staying the same and the digital game prices are dropping.

But the standard game price was only recently (August, less than a year ago) increased to $70 after being $60 for quite a long time.

So if you zoom out on the timeline, it will basically look like physical prices increased while digital stays the same except for a little spike for the Switch 2 release window.

 

[KobayashiSaru]

Really disappointing that this misleading title hasn't been updated, since it's provably false and Nintendo even specifically stated they are not raising the prices of physical games.

I was willing to give Ars the benefit of the doubt after the whole AI debacle - sometimes shit happens - but then I see this kind of stuff and am thinking it's time to stop resubbing if this is just the new pattern.

Edit: I checked the feedback forum and there is no thread about it, so I created one. I'm surpised no one has checked this thread though, has anyone emailed or notified the staff about this before now?

 

[emag]

Wow if that's the case then reporter translation REALLY needs to get on the ball with this sort of thing. I shudder to think the number of public statements people keep treating as gospel from Miyamoto or some other Japanese developer which might turn out to have been a horrible mistranslation the whole time. I suppose if nothing else, in the age of the internet where word count isn't a limiting factor, it'd be a good idea to include both the original words and the translation, so if someone wants to take those words and get a second translation elsewhere, they can do so. This is less necessary when the original interview is already recorded as a publicly available video, but more necessary when the interview was done without a recording.

There's no translation involved. This is a Nintendo of America policy change (which was already implemented in several other regions), and while the initial statement was a little vague in stating that physical card prices are technically set by retailers, not Nintendo, the fact that it came alongside a reduced $59.99 digital release whereas every previous physical/digital Nintendo S2 game has been $69.99 (apart from Mario Kart at $79.99) should have made it clear what was happening here. Nintendo of America then explicitly confirmed that digital games would be cheaper two hours later.

Ars made up a false headline and misleading story and has left it sitting for nearly 24 hours as of now, despite numerous comments pointing out the error. I wish this was the only time, but unfortunately it's become something of a pattern here for Ars to ignore or bury mistakes.

 

[emag]

Computers no longer have optical drives by default (custom builds only.) Physical copies of PC games disappeared a long time ago. We have no choice.

On the other hand, Nintendo and Sony have killed the online stores for all of their older systems. PSP, Vita, DS, 3DS, etc... I can no longer access the games I purchased on those stores. If I lose my files, they're gone for good.

All of those download servers (Wii, too) are still up and functional. You can't buy additional games (for some of those), but existing purchases can be redownloaded.

 

[CotUZZZ]

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.

This is a very fair concern, but digital purchases on the Wii Shop Channel are still downloadable. Nintendo has never cut off downloads, so Nintendo digital purchases have actually been downloadable longer than Steam. The Wii was one of (if not the?) first consoles with digital games, so the games being tied to the console is mainly an issue with pioneering this new thing. I highly doubt they'll shut down Wii download servers as the Wii is still extremely popular, but you never know I guess. I would be skeptical of any digital purchase, not just Nintendo.

 

[burndive]

There's a lot of consternation on the question of whether this is a $10 decrease in the price of digital games or a $10 increase in the price of physical games. (This only applies to Nintendo-published games).

One way to see it is that Nintendo already raised their physical and digital prices, and now they are bringing the digital prices back down. But what they actually did was introduce "variable pricing" for their games with the launch of the Switch 2: They will charge an amount (between $50 and $80) that they think the market will bear for any given game.

What this change actually does is give them more flexibility in pricing their games, and more closely reflects how much it costs to distribute games digitally vs physically. Some games that would have been difficult to sell at $70 before this new pricing paradigm will now confidently MSRP at $70 physical and $60 digital. Some games that would comfortably have MSRP'd at $70 will now be available for $60 digitally. My guess is we'll see a lot more games at $70 (physical) under this system than at $60 or $80 than we otherwise would have.

Nintendo has actually charged $10 less per game digitally for years to NSO members who purchased digital game vouchers. This just makes that the normal price of a digital game without having to jump through hoops.

As someone who generally prefers to keep first-party Nintendo games rather than resell them, I'm happy about this. Keep in mind, you can also bring the price of digital games down further by purchasing discounted Nintendo eShop cards. Costco has a standing price at 10% off, and sometimes you can find eShop cards on sale/promotion for as low as $80 for $100 of credit.

 

[KobayashiSaru]

Ars made up a false headline and misleading story and has left it sitting for nearly 24 hours as of now, despite numerous comments pointing out the error. I wish this was the only time, but unfortunately it's become something of a pattern here for Ars to ignore or bury mistakes.

They didn't "make up" a false headline, the initial release from Nintendo was unclear and later corrected. But the fact that this has still not been addressed by either the author or editor is definitely concerning.