Yeah, I know:

Haven't updated it to take into account Switch 2 games, but that $80 line should suffice to put the price of an $80 game today into context. I've been buying my own video games for 27 years, and this whole idea that $80 is highway robbery or something falls upon deaf ears. Video games have always been an expensive hobby, and it used to be even worse in that regard. Even if we ignore the expensive cartridges of old systems, disc-based games from Gens 5 to 7 were on average more expensive than today's games. Honestly, I do kinda blame the industry for one thing: letting the $60 standard persist for so long (two generations spanning 15 years). They let people get used to the idea that games were going to stay $60 forever. The maximum price for a new game should have been bumped up by $10 each generation to keep software prices at least somewhat in pace with inflation.

The most insidious part people leave out in this discussion, is that not lowering the retail price is used by companies as an excuse to drive truly anti-consumer practices like microtransaction hell, on-disc DLC, early access periods which will only get longer and more expensive, releasing games broken and having to patch it several times over years (basically another form of early access)...

Production budgets have skyrocketed in the last few generations. They have to recoup that money somehow. If they're not making it back up front how do you think they're gonna try and get it.

Nintendo have kept themselves somewhat immune to more extreme issues, but even their production budgets will be pushing it by now. Breath of the Wild with the time it took to develop and the scale of it's world, was not cheap to make just because it was made for toasters.

Being the first to increase base prices to a new level means Nintendo doesn't want to follow those shady tactics, but people want to paint them the villain of all things.

I was already unhappy about Nintendo's pricing policies as is; this doesn't make it any better. They famously never lower their prices either, regardless of how much the software itself sells. I own only 7 games for my Switch in total, this is precisely because of their pricing. I went to look for Tears of the Kingdom, and saw that Breath of the Wild was still sold for full price after all those years. I can afford to buy games, it's the principle of it; older tech and goods should decrease in price relative to newer. In addition, controllers and peripherals are costly as well. And, to make matters even worse, living in Sweden, the console itself will cost north of 650$ to buy.

I can't see myself getting a Switch 2 at this point, the handheld aspect is also a no-go for me since I don't play in handheld mode. In time, there will probably be emulators available. Nintendo's own offerings are always tempting, but I can't justify such a purchase just for a handful of 1st party titles (I don't play Kirby, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Smash, Splatoon or some other 1st party franchises, it's mostly mainline Mario, Mario Kart, Star-Fox, and Zelda for me).

Edit; ooof, I just looked up some of the pricing here in Sweden: the console alone is 680$, a pair of Joy-con 2 costs 120$, Pro Controller 125$ and Mario Kart World goes for 100$. Norway has the same pricing, and the SEK and NOK are very close in value now. The Mario Kart bundle is 750$. These are shocking prices to me. I haven't bought a PS5 either, due to its price, they cost about 700$ here (Standard Edition, I don't want Digital only since I have so many PS4 titles on disc).

I understand the impulse to lash out at corporations doing anything that takes any extra money out of their pocket. Corporations are also easy targets for good reason, because they actually really do scummy things for the sake of profit. But video games are technically cheaper than they've ever been in terms of upfront costs, despite a market that's been stagnant since Gen 6, software tie ratios having not grown in that time, and development budgets skyrocketing.

I would have gladly paid $80 for games over these past few years if it meant that I could just unlock stuff in game instead of being nickel-and-dimed through microtransactions and battle passes.

And you know that meme going around that says "I want shorter games with worse graphics and I'm not kidding"? Well, I agree with the first half, and I'm sure a lot of others might want more games that don't take 60 hours to complete. But I really doubt most people would have been fine with graphics having stagnated for the past 20 years or so. The console cycle is dictated by sales. Every system reaches a peak and then declines as the number of people who have the desire and money to buy that system starts to trend towards zero. A new system comes out to replace the old one and restart the cycle. Those new systems are more powerful because technology advanced over the previous few years. If we kept getting consoles with the exact same power levels as a Gen 6 system over and over, with each system not being forwards compatible with its identical successor. The only other alternative is to just stop making new consoles period and just focus on software forever, only making new systems to replace ones that wear out. The former possibility is downright insulting, and the latter is something that I think most people probably really want to happen regardless of what they might say.

But as long as we keep getting more powerful hardware and gamers keep demanding ever more grand and ambitious experiences and treat "short" and "linear" like dirty words, development costs will continue to go up, and the industry will find some way of generating more revenue to make up for increased expenditures.

I never buy a game at full price, so this won't affect me too much.