Sadly, buying a first-party Nintendo game brand new for under $40 is nearly impossible. Even with retailers, you have to luck out on a great sale or clearance. 

The cheapest way to get Nintendo games on Switch is typically to get the loose game card, because you can find those for $30-$35 if the game is old enough. Still, I've never gotten a used Switch game yet and would probably get a used one complete in box.

This thread does remind me of the scary fact that some AAA games could be $90-$100 by the mid-2030s.

Sure, but if we account for everything AAA development costs have increased by about 2 orders of magnitude over the last two decades (low millions in the early 2000s versus hundreds of millions today.) 

Here’s the thing: I can probably get a physical copy of grand theft auto five for the PS4 for like around $25 at Walmart. Are we to assume that grand theft auto 6, will give us four times the content as five, a game that is very verbose?

Yeah I dont buy used games so thats not an option for me lol

Not that it matters anymore since I buy digital only.

But ya like you said, retailers tend to do special price cuts/deals that the first party doesnt do. I've found a few good deals that way - like some Nintendo games were $30. I still remember that infamous Gamestop price cut during black friday - thankfully Amazon and Best Buy price matched and I was able to get a lot of Mario and Pokemon games for $25 to $30 lol.

I wouldn't buy any game for that price though the lower end is probably happening within the next 5 years or so. Hell GTA 6 will probably be £70 like Black Ops 6 so things might already be increasing again outside of the US.

They have to course correct and bring down production costs. Smaller teams, less graphical detail nonsense until AI can reduce the cost of that significantly enough to make it worth it. If they put the price on the players they risk crashing the AAA industry and indies aren't enough to sell systems. Nintendo and indies on PC will be all that's left after the implosion. 

Some of the most popular games of the past decade have been non graphically intensive, go back as far as Minecraft, among us, Palworld more recently and so on and none of them reached close to 70. 

I personally think raising prices, hiring more staff (or higher quality staff at a higher salary) to share the workload  is the course correction needed. Reducing staff will just lead to more crunch time and less happy employees. It will also lead to a talent funnel over the medium term. Pro-worker policies are the antidote to this. 

Also graphics alone aren't why games are more expensive in this decade, as middle-ware has proliferated throughout most of the industry and helped control costs. Asset production is the biggest expense and that exists just as much for developers who choose more stylistic presentations. Almost all of Nintendo's studios, for example, have expanded significantly over the last decade as average asset quality (again which is only partly dependent on graphics quality) has improved. 

I don't think the video game industry will crash over an $80-$100 price. Again, gamers were paying that much in the past and the industry was fine. There is heavy price-discrimination in the industry where game prices drop over a schedule or on subscription services, and that likely won't change. 

What will crash the game industry (and which has crashed in the past) were poor quality titles and a lack of creative innovation. The micro-transaction model and long-development times that plague the industry currently are more likely to cause that than inflation-tracked price-increases are. 

No and considering how much of the gaming ground is now covered by the almighty AAA Gacha live-service games knowdays, it would simply be even more of a prohibitive increase to the general people who can only afford so few games a year.

And that's not even considering the fact that a lot of those big publishers like Take Two derives most of their profits from the add-ons(MTX,DLC, subscriptions, etc ...)
It would only add further to the barrier of entry before even getting into their (bad exploitative) ecosystem.

Anyway, it would definitely wouldn't the help the trend of seeing people wait up for those sweet sales instead of the 1st day buyers being there in mass.

Yeah, sure...if I was interested that much in it and thought its content is deserving of it.

I mean, there are already games that cost more than that, albeit in very niche genres (mostly various sims).

I still think developers/publishers should just set their price on a case by case basis instead of relying on industry standards, lower prices can also lead to more sales so it's about finding the balance for each title. Personally I could be convinced to pay $80 for a game like the Witcher 3, but there are many $60 games I feel would make more sense at $40. As for GTA if Rockstar wants to see what happens at 100$ be my guest, it will still sell but it won't be a decision free of backlash, and it's ridiculous to think that one super expensive game will "save the industry" particularly when it isn't in need of saving. Companies just need to realize that infinite growth is neither sustainable or necessary.