Doesn't europe have VAT or something to drive prices up? Or are those EU prices pre-VAT?

Physical games are the past, I think people just need to accept that. The $80 is basically a "fine we'll give you physical games but we're not eating the physical cost of the cart + retail margin for no charge any longer, you want that, you pay for it".

The games are $60-$70 ... $80 is just for a minority audience that for whatever reason needs to have physical games ... they can pay more for that. 

Doesn't europe have VAT or something to drive prices up? Or are those EU prices pre-VAT?

I'm not sure if that's 100% known as this moment. I'm sure it would be since it's law. A user who lives in Germany in another thread is saying Switch 2 games will be 90 Euros. I'm trying to find more information. Would've been helpful if Nintendo put out a full press release statement going over pricing rather than randomly posting pricing on certain games without much context.

MK World being $80 is directly on Nintendo's website, but there's 3 asterisks next to the price saying "***Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. Actual price may vary" which doesn't help.

I'm not sure if that's 100% known as this moment. I'm sure it would be since it's law. A user who lives in Germany in another thread is saying Switch 2 games will be 90 Euros. I'm trying to find more information. Would've been helpful if Nintendo put out a full press release statement going over pricing rather than randomly posting pricing on certain games without much context.

MK World being $80 is directly on Nintendo's website, but there's 3 asterisks next to the price saying "***Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. Actual price may vary" which doesn't help.

Maybe this will force physical to become a minority on Nintendo Platforms, but as of FY24 physical is still much more popular than Digital on Switch.

In FY24:

Physical Software = 49.8% software sales
Downloadable versions of packaged software sales = 25.85% software sales  (51.5% of all digital sales)
Download Only Software, Add-on Content, Subscriptions = 24.35% software sales (48.5% of all digital sales)

Physical Versions of games had almost double the sales of downloadable versions of retail games on the Switch in FY24. So if games have both a physical and digital version then physical basically has a 2:1 advantage. 66% of Switch gamers get the physical copy.

240507_3e.pdf

Do we know if this is just a MarioKart problem? Or are all games going to suffer an $80 price tag? I’m hopeful this might just be a TotK situation, where the average game will cost $70, but some exceptional releases recieve a $10 bump. If it is the case that $70 is the norm, then I’m not too worried: MKWorld being a pack-in will prevent consumers from being smacked with an $80 price tag. However…I do struggle to see why your average consumer would purchase a NSW2 over the more economically-affordable NSW1 if they never owned a NSW1. It’s a tricky situation, and seeing how this went down for TotK (not even matching BotW in legs), I do believe Nintendo really should consider reexamining this strategy.

They hit a grand slam with software this time around (Kirby Air Ride 2, MarioKart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, GCN on NSO, FromSoft exclusive, DeltaRune Chpt3/4 at launch, a flood of major third-party releases that NSW1 couldn’t handle all too well, etc.), but their choice in pricing is bold **in NA** is bold. $450 for the base console is a very reasonable price, and expecting any lower was entirely unrealistic. Software prices, however, are what make me turn an eye.

Pricing:

Yeah we of course don't know yet what the overall game pricing strategy is. But considering they just went from $60 as the norm (with the absolutely massive TotK being the only $70 game), to a launch day Switch 2 game being not just $70, which would have already sent a bad signal that $70 is the norm, but $80....that's bad. BAD! Yes at least for MKWorld I imagine most consumers will avoid the $80 price and only pay $50 by getting the bundle, although given that, the bundle will probably be very hard to find and many people will be forced to pay $30 extra to get the standalone system + MK at $80.

But MKWorld being $80 to me suggests that all the big AAA Nintendo games are gonna be $80. $70 would have been very annoying, but $80 is honestly crazy. Yeah we saw TotK had like no legs and probably partially that is because of the $70 price. Nintendo is really looking to hurt the incredible lineup of evergreen games they enjoy if major games are $80. The only way this strategy makes sense is if they go back to discounting games so that $80 games get dropped to like $40 after a couple years.

The only games I would even remotely consider paying $80 for (and doing it very begrudgingly) would be 3D Zelda, 3D Mario, and maybe Smash Bros though honestly it's hard to imagine topping, let alone vastly exceeding, Smash Ultimate, which would be the bar for me paying such a price for Smash bros (in general I don't even know how they can follow Ultimate, that series is my biggest open question mark for any Nintendo series). So really there's probably only two series I would pay $80 for, and be annoyed about it. Hell, even at $70 the list of games I would buy probably only expands to MK, Smash, 3D Metroid, and one Pokemon game for the gen assuming they actually make an outstanding open world non-buggy challenging Pokemon game. So at $80 that's 2 games I would buy, with perhaps 4 more games at $70. Meanwhile, for comparison, I bought 20 first party Switch games and the only reason I didn't buy more is because my backlog is too huge already.

Software/DK:

In terms of a "grand slam with software", well third party for sure, as Nintendo looks like it's back, after all these generations, as a system that gets major AAA third party support on the regular. But first party announcements were pretty weak. MKWorld looks incredible, but other than that it was weak. It seems like they are realllllllyyyyyy counting on DK Bananza being a Mario-like mega selling title. They definitely specifically chose to replace Mario with DK in the launch lineup, when Mario was the obvious choice and what everyone was looking forward to, so it is quite the gamble even if it is a similar big 3D platforming game. Cuz similar does not mean same. DK is a much smaller franchise than Mario, but hell maybe this will be the game that brings DK back to being a big hitter.

Personally I thought DK looked really cool, definitely looks like a big 3D Mario game but just DK instead, and I had been expected a new DK game soon I just thought it'd be the big holiday title. Hopefully it's great, I'll wait until it's out and people can dive into it to reserve any judgement. But just thinking back to the one other 3D DK game (DK64) that was hyped up as the next Mario 64 and then turned out to just be a rather boring bloated very mediocre game...I'm just having flashbacks to 25+ years ago being deeply disappointed haha. But here's hoping Nintendo did DK right this time and that this is gonna be a major critically acclaimed game for the system, if it is then the launch period of the system starts looking better with two major Nintendo games including a Mario-like game, plus a lot of third party games. So yeah in that case it would be closer to a grand slam even without the one game that would have ensured it being a grand slam.

Overall:

My overall analysis after taking everything in is that sales are going to be very interesting to watch haha.

On the one hand the system is incredible, looks like the power is beyond all expectations with an appropriately higher price given that, and is really everything we could have possibly hoped for, and is going to have a ton of big game third party support like Nintendo hasn't seen since GC or SNES. On the other hand the prices are way higher than what Nintendo gamers have ever paid and Nintendo can no longer be considered the affordable system, in the Switch 2 era the idea that Nintendo is affordable will be completely dead. Plus no 3D Mario in sight is a strong case for not buying the system near launch, even if Mario Kart World looks incredible and there's lots of third party games coming out at launch. Personally, the awful pricing and no Mario is an absolute no-buy for me at or near launch. If Mario comes out for the holidays I'll consider getting the bundle then, but with Nintendo system/games no longer being in the affordable category I'll be getting way less games next gen as compared to Switch.

If the games were $60 and Mario was launch day Nintendo would have just owned the world because the system and the features and the third party support are all incredible. But the couple mistakes they have made are huge mistakes.

The Mario mistake is short term assuming it'll perhaps be a holiday, but title it definitely does hurt the initial launch period positioning of the system with plenty of people already saying the first party launch lineup is lackluster with no Mario and only MK and the next month DK.

But I expect the pricing to really hurt the popularity of the system and is gonna keep the Switch alive for a while similar to the PS3-PS2 situation. Switch 2 might pick up a few extra million high tech people (people who are happy to pay high prices and only want to play high end graphics) but it's probably gonna lose tens of millions of consumers who are looking for an affordable system to play.

The only Nintendo console I haven't owned was WiiU, and honestly if I wasn't a hardcore Nintendo guy I'd probably skip the Switch 2 entirely and just keep playing my Switch games for plenty of years. 58 minutes into the Direct I went from thinking they just pulled off the greatest thing ever, assuming 3D Mario was the last game they were going to show. Then when it was DK I was like okay they made one huge software blunder but there's still DK and if that game turns out to be really good and a decent Mario replacement for the short term then the the launch will be still be good, and as long as they can get 3D Mario out as a holiday title they'll eventually recover the fumble. Then I saw the system pricing and i was like okay the days of Nintendo being affordable are over which is definitely going to hurt sales, but the HW pricing does make sense considering the fact that the system is super powerful, just a bit disappointing being a Nintendo gamer now involves buying a very expensive system. Then...I saw the $80 MK, and what that implies for their overall much more expensive next-gen pricing strategy...and wow what a change in my perspective from before the DK reveal to now. 58 minutes into the Direct I was thinking this was the best launch reveal ever and I was suddenly thinking about trying to buy it launch day, now I'm thinking about how drastically these blunders will hurt sales and how I might not buy the system for a long time, or even if I get it sooner rather than later, I'm gonna be getting wayyyy less games for it than the Switch.