I love Nintendo dearly..... but I thoughts and can't stay silent... so here goes...
I would argue this is far worse than the PS3 situation. PS3 games didn't cost and arm and a leg. This feels more like an Apple Pippin situation up here in Canada. The system will launch at $629.99 CAD which is the exact same price the PS5 disk-based version launched at. Now here's the kicker. The $80 games come into about $115 dollars a game, and if the rumours that are true that the digital games are $80 USD and physical copies are $90 USD, that brings physical retail prices up to $129 a game. This is insane and most people are not willing to pay that. A lot of hardcore gamer are passing that up, and parents are not going to be paying that much for one game for their kids. Who is this platform actually for?
I also want to point out that a lot of the games (specifically 3rd party games) were extremely blurry and had very poor anti-alising to the point it was discomforting to look at. Why are we paying significantly more money (upwards to $40 CAD more per game) for a significant downgrade in quality from PS, XBS, and PC? We can't defend a lower spec platform when the higher spec platforms offer better dollar value and far fairer priced games.
Super Mario Kart World looks phenomenal, as does the New Donkey Kong and From Software game. Prime 4 as well.... but I must ask. Where is the value? I did not see anything today to justify the price point of the hardware or the software and it doesn't look good. As far as I am concerned this is historically the most expensive video game platform ecosystem to buy into. Comparing it to the PS3 is just.... nonsense.
Which lies the problem. The price might be fair in the US, but in Canada it may have cost them an entire market because there has never been a price hike in gaming that is felt this hard in the True North. I'm not sure what the solution will be, but Nintendo will definitely struggle and they have a huge problem on their hands that does not look easy to solve. Never would have I imagined that it would be Nintendo of the big three that would alienate a nation and jack prices to the point of extortion. Canadians are VERY serious when it comes to boycotting products and Nintendo is playing a very dangerous game by opening this Pandora's box. Worst case scenario is Nintendo does nothing and many retailers drastically scale back on Nintendo products, or worse-worse case is this becomes the new normal and Sony and Microsoft raise their prices but something tells me that the drop in software sales up here will urge Sony and Microsoft to think twice which will either leave Nintendo out or force them to reverse course. 30+ years of being a Nintendo fan and I've never felt this sickened by Nintendo as I do today, or as concerned for them.
