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BrazillianCara
Joined: 31 Dec 2023
Posts: 88
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 Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2026 9:56 pm |
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Because the article didn't include it: they have already confirmed that this won't involve raising the prices of physical cartridges.
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James02
Joined: 10 Sep 2014
Posts: 370
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2026 10:01 pm |
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| BrazillianCara wrote: | | Because the article didn't include it: they have already confirmed that this won't involve raising the prices of physical cartridges. |
It's mentioned on other website, so it is strange not to mention it here.
I guess it is just insinuated.
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Top Gun
Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 5293
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2026 11:09 pm |
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I mean this is how purchasing digital entertainment from anyone should have been for...what, 25 years at least? Charging the same as a physical release when you were avoiding all of the overhead of replicating, shipping, and shelving physical product was always a bit of a scam.
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Dr. Wily
Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 864
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2026 11:49 pm |
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Dammit Nintendo, right after I was all "Go get 'em!" about you suing the government, you gotta go do something like this.
| Top Gun wrote: | | I mean this is how purchasing digital entertainment from anyone should have been for...what, 25 years at least? Charging the same as a physical release when you were avoiding all of the overhead of replicating, shipping, and shelving physical product was always a bit of a scam. |
I mean you're not wrong but also as someone who enjoys physical media I can't be too happy. Mainly because it sets a precedent that other companies will almost certainly be overjoyed to follow. Also cartridges/discs provided a bit of a cap on how big a game could be (file size-wise) and when those go away (which I'm sure is the end game), we're gonna see games start to balloon, and call me crazy but I don't think those memory cards are gonna get any cheaper.
The real kicker is that all this is for Yoshi, a game which I frankly never planned on getting.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5965
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2026 11:55 pm |
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I just don't understand the reasoning that gamers have been complaining about digital games costing too much for years and now Nintendo makes them cheaper suddenly it's all a shadowy conspiracy to get rid of physical games. Would anyone be complaining if it was anyone but Nintendo doing this?
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AiddonValentine
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2947
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 12:35 am |
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Notably this is the case in a lot of markets like Europe, the US is just getting parity with the rest of the world
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WANNFH
Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Posts: 2079
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 1:43 am |
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | I just don't understand the reasoning that gamers have been complaining about digital games costing too much for years and now Nintendo makes them cheaper suddenly it's all a shadowy conspiracy to get rid of physical games. Would anyone be complaining if it was anyone but Nintendo doing this? |
The point they not really making the digital games cheaper (with the game still cost 60 bucks on price tag), but the physical cartridges price tag is now more expensive (and in fact, it's already been for a while in EU, while US only getting it following the reports that Switch 2 currently underperforming).
But yeah, it's not really even the shadow conspiracy - it's obvious measure to get more value because of physical cartridges cost production.
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lufia2rocks
Joined: 22 Aug 2025
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 5:09 am |
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| BrazillianCara wrote: | | Because the article didn't include it: they have already confirmed that this won't involve raising the prices of physical cartridges. |
Didn't they say they do "variable pricing" now? i.e. Mario Kart is 'more game' so it costs more, etc? I guess it's not a change if it's always been that way. I always saw people saying they wre willing to pay more for physical games on the Switch 2. Time to see if they'll step up
| Top Gun wrote: | | I mean this is how purchasing digital entertainment from anyone should have been for...what, 25 years at least? Charging the same as a physical release when you were avoiding all of the overhead of replicating, shipping, and shelving physical product was always a bit of a scam. |
Agreed.
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Greed1914
Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 5348
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 10:09 am |
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| Top Gun wrote: | | I mean this is how purchasing digital entertainment from anyone should have been for...what, 25 years at least? Charging the same as a physical release when you were avoiding all of the overhead of replicating, shipping, and shelving physical product was always a bit of a scam. |
Yeah. At this stage, I'm skeptical of the intentions since doing it now is likely more motivated to be another push to kill off physical markets and get everyone into their own store. But, I also acknowledge that I've been saying since the inception of digital stores that the games should at least be cheaper digitally. The customer's one benefit was the convenience of having it downloaded immediately on release day, and the company pocketed the savings with not having to produce and distribute the physical copy.
Since I'm still a proponent of physical media, I'll continue to buy physically, but I'm not going to pretend not to see where this will go.
| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | I just don't understand the reasoning that gamers have been complaining about digital games costing too much for years and now Nintendo makes them cheaper suddenly it's all a shadowy conspiracy to get rid of physical games. Would anyone be complaining if it was anyone but Nintendo doing this? |
At this point, the timing is relevant. All companies, including Nintendo, have been content to sell digital at the same price as physical, despite the customers knowing that the companies pocket the difference. Why change that now? None of them do anything out of kindness. The trend year-to-year is towards digital sales despite the drawbacks to the customer. How many physical customers will be swayed to go digital if they save a bit of money on release day? Based on this, I think Nintendo at least believes the number will be high enough to give up $10 on each copy.
The big advantage of digital is the level of control companies have. Retail partners may lower prices to unload stock that sits there, but a digital store doesn't need to do that. A digital store selling first-party games doesn't have to share that pesky 30% commission with anyone. Also, we've seen variable pricing entering the market. Sony is experimenting with individualized discounts. Nintendo will tell you that Mario Kart is an $80 that they can also somehow sell for $50 if you buy it in that one bundle that is getting phased out. I suspect what we will see from this is that instead of $60 digital $70 physical, we will see it become $70 digital and $80 physical. They've been trying to crack that $80 game price, and that is one more way to accomplish it without flat out making all games $80.
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residentgrigo
Joined: 23 Dec 2007
Posts: 2763
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 3:34 pm |
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Most cartridge-based Switch 2 games and all games involving Nintendo cost exactly 10€ more than the digital version since the consoles launched in Germany, so we have been living in this "changing market condition" since the start. Now about those gas prices... Look forward to a proper gameing market crisis if we end up with Oil Crisis 2.0. Gaming and Nintendo took a real hit the last time that happend but I wasn´t born in the 70s.
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BadNewsBlues
Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 7195
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 3:39 pm |
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| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | I just don't understand the reasoning that gamers have been complaining about digital games costing too much for years and now Nintendo makes them cheaper suddenly it's all a shadowy conspiracy to get rid of physical games. Would anyone be complaining if it was anyone but Nintendo doing this? |
I believe so.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5965
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 3:45 pm |
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| WANNFH wrote: | | The point they not really making the digital games cheaper (with the game still cost 60 bucks on price tag), but the physical cartridges price tag is now more expensive (and in fact, it's already been for a while in EU, while US only getting it following the reports that Switch 2 currently underperforming).
But yeah, it's not really even the shadow conspiracy - it's obvious measure to get more value because of physical cartridges cost production. |
Nintendo has literally said that they aren't changing the prices of the physical games.
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Mizlude
Joined: 30 Jun 2025
Posts: 78
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 8:37 pm |
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People should prepare for physical releases to end up just becoming a luxury - if they aren't already with limited collections editions being the only way to get physical versions of a lot of games nowadays. All companies would love to go digital since it lets them control the pricing and the market by doing away with the secondary market and used game sales. Xbox tried testing the digital only waters and got massive backlash. Then Sony put out a digital only PS5 and it was met with much less hatred. Now it's Nintendo's turn to come up with a way to incentivize people to buy digital. And given Nintendo shapes the industry usually this one might actually work and we'll see a decrease in physical releases. Game key cards were already a step in that direction and Pokopia's success pretty much shows people are more than willing to accept it. As someone who primarily plays on PC and Steam I've long since stopped caring about physical games but for those that do I think they'll have to accept that physical is going to be a premium thing one day and plan accordingly
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Fluwm
Moderator
Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 1625
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2026 10:55 am |
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To think: it only took NIntendo 13 years to follow up on that "experiment" they tried with Wind Waker HD.
Anyway, one small point to make w/r/t some of the comments here: the thing about digital games being cheaper to produce/distribute than physical games resulting in lower prices for consumers... is that this very much HAS been the case, on basically every platform. It may not be reflective in MSRPs, but it certainly is with sales. The problem with Nintendo, specifically, is that they're not really taking advantage of that (their eShop discounts for first party software seldom go below 20%).
Like if you're buying third party games, you'll find some amazing deals, and save a ton over physical media long-term (especially if you're patient), same as you would on PC or Playstation or Xbox. It's just that Nintendo's own games, specifically, are immune to that dynamic.
And it's kind of gross considering Nintendo used to be very aware that it was a toy company, and that a large portion (the largest, even) of its playerbase were children, so they tried to make things affordable. If there were some modern equivalent of the old "Nintendo Selects" line, even if it were digital-only, folks would be a lot less likely to complain about Nintendo doing all of the other (gesturing broadly here) anticonsumer nonsense.
| Cardcaptor Takato wrote: | | WANNFH wrote: | | The point they not really making the digital games cheaper (with the game still cost 60 bucks on price tag), but the physical cartridges price tag is now more expensive (and in fact, it's already been for a while in EU, while US only getting it following the reports that Switch 2 currently underperforming).
But yeah, it's not really even the shadow conspiracy - it's obvious measure to get more value because of physical cartridges cost production. |
Nintendo has literally said that they aren't changing the prices of the physical games. |
That's because they already raised their prices for physical games -- once in 2023, and then again in 2025. Should we thank Nintendo for not dropping a third price hike in as many years on us?
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Alphael
Joined: 19 Jun 2025
Posts: 70
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2026 2:47 pm |
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| Fluwm wrote: | | That's because they already raised their prices for physical games -- once in 2023, and then again in 2025. Should we thank Nintendo for not dropping a third price hike in as many years on us? |
Remains to be seen. Their current 'variable pricing' could just mean all physical games cost $80 now and they're still not technically lying by saying prices aren't going up since they already have $80 games. So "prices of physical games aren't going up" can mean "everything is $80 now" without it being a lie. We'll see how it goes. With the Sony price hike now we just wait for Microsoft to join in.
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