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Forums - Nintendo - Can Nintendo turn Switch 2's pricing disaster around? And how?

160rmf on 07 April 2025
Manlytears said:
Tober said:

Inflation does not just hit consumers, it also hits companies. Nintendo has seen costs rise, the only way to balance is to raise prizes or work more efficiently. I applauded Nintendo for hiring instead of firing, so I'm not getting upset if overall their prizes increase.

Correct. That's indeed a great merit for Nintendo.

But still, $80 and $90 games, at Nintendo budget, is pure greed. 

GTA VI at $80 and budget of $400-500M, i get It.

Mario Kart at $80 and budget of, maybe, $50-100M, i don't get It...

You dont have a clue about the MKW budget. Below even close to 100M is a stretch, you know they have to pay the developers and pay it well

Last edited by 160rmf - on 07 April 2025

 

 

We reap what we sow

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CaptainExplosion on 07 April 2025
TheMisterManGuy said:
Manlytears said:

Correct. That's indeed a great merit for Nintendo.

But still, $80 and $90 games, at Nintendo budget, is pure greed. 

GTA VI at $80 and budget of $400-500M, i get It.

Mario Kart at $80 and budget of, maybe, $50-100M, i don't get It...

Gamers: "Mario Kart for $80!!? Greedy Nintendo! DROP THE PRICE!

Also gamers: "GTA for $80-90!!? Sold! Take my money Rockstar!"

People upset about Nintendo charging $80, yet defend Rockstar for for potentially charging $90 for GTA have no right to complain about the former in that case.

Mario Kart games tend to be fun and colorful anyway, while GTA is just the same bleak and brown shit over and over again. And having a bigger budget doesn't always mean better game.



eleazar0425 on 07 April 2025
160rmf said:
Manlytears said:

Correct. That's indeed a great merit for Nintendo.

But still, $80 and $90 games, at Nintendo budget, is pure greed. 

GTA VI at $80 and budget of $400-500M, i get It.

Mario Kart at $80 and budget of, maybe, $50-100M, i don't get It...

You dont have a clue about the MKW budget. Below 100M is a stretch, you know they have to pay the developers and pay it well

In addition, Nintendo is one of the few companies left that don't burn out their employees; their games are released without any crunch.



Soundwave on 07 April 2025

I don't think it's greed ... the system was going to cost $450 ... that decision was made years ago IMO. Anyone looking at that tech and saying it's cheap is being naive, things like 256GB UFS 3.1 flash RAM for example is still the go to in like $1000 premium phones and none of those have an 8 inch screen either or a 1536 CUDA core GPU (which is honestly a lot of CUDA cores for a supposedly "budget device").

What I think is happening is Nintendo realizes they can't cut the price on the hardware, but with the tarriffs they may be forced to have their entire profit margin on the hardware wiped out in their biggest market (the US). To compensate for that, I think they are experimenting with these higher price points on software to claw back a profit margin on early adopter buys.

They won't publically admit to that, but I don't think this just randomly happened. The software was probably supposed to be $59.99 (DK: Bananza) and $69.99 for Mario Kart/Zelda/3D Mario tier titles, but they are going to see if they can push it up by $10. If it doesn't really take, they'll just move it back down at a later point where hopefully Nintendo this whole tarrif stupidity will be over and they can get back that $30 margin or whatever per system sold in the US.



eleazar0425 on 08 April 2025
Soundwave said:

I don't think it's greed ... the system was going to cost $450 ... that decision was made years ago IMO. Anyone looking at that tech and saying it's cheap is being naive, things like 256GB UFS 3.1 flash RAM for example is still the go to in like $1000 premium phones and none of those have an 8 inch screen either or a 1536 CUDA core GPU (which is honestly a lot of CUDA cores for a supposedly "budget device").

What I think is happening is Nintendo realizes they can't cut the price on the hardware, but with the tarriffs they may be forced to have their entire profit margin on the hardware wiped out in their biggest market (the US). To compensate for that, I think they are experimenting with these higher price points on software to claw back a profit margin on early adopter buys.

They won't publically admit to that, but I don't think this just randomly happened. The software was probably supposed to be $59.99 (DK: Bananza) and $69.99 for Mario Kart/Zelda/3D Mario tier titles, but they are going to see if they can push it up by $10. If it doesn't really take, they'll just move it back down at a later point where hopefully Nintendo this whole tarrif stupidity will be over and they can get back that $30 margin or whatever per system sold in the US.

Also, it was reported a while ago that a 32 GB Switch cartridge has x1.6 times the cost of a Bluray, and Mario Kart is now coming in a 32 GB cartridge—a lot of factors we should consider. The Switch 2 cartridge should be faster as well and, therefore, more expensive.



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RolStoppable on 08 April 2025
Manlytears said:
Tober said:

Inflation does not just hit consumers, it also hits companies. Nintendo has seen costs rise, the only way to balance is to raise prizes or work more efficiently. I applauded Nintendo for hiring instead of firing, so I'm not getting upset if overall their prizes increase.

Correct. That's indeed a great merit for Nintendo.

But still, $80 and $90 games, at Nintendo budget, is pure greed. 

GTA VI at $80 and budget of $400-500M, i get It.

Mario Kart at $80 and budget of, maybe, $50-100M, i don't get It...

You aren't the only one who doesn't get it, that's why Take Two gets away with it. GTA VI won't be only $80, it will have an avalanche of microtransactions whereas Nintendo games don't have any.



Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.

Dante9 on 08 April 2025
CaptainExplosion said:
TheMisterManGuy said:

Gamers: "Mario Kart for $80!!? Greedy Nintendo! DROP THE PRICE!

Also gamers: "GTA for $80-90!!? Sold! Take my money Rockstar!"

People upset about Nintendo charging $80, yet defend Rockstar for for potentially charging $90 for GTA have no right to complain about the former in that case.

Mario Kart games tend to be fun and colorful anyway, while GTA is just the same bleak and brown shit over and over again. And having a bigger budget doesn't always mean better game.

Really? Your argument is "colorful"?

Most games out there are fun in different ways, people don't buy games to feel miserable.

You cannot seriously ignore the difference in the scope and budget of these two games and just wash it away with "colorful".

Personally, I'm not going to buy either one of these games, but I can see things how they are.



Crown on 08 April 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlmFdThy_c

At least it made me laugh a little.



Valdney on 08 April 2025

The only issue I have with pricing: The console itself is 50 dollars more than I would have liked. That’s it. The price of certain games being 10 dollars more than the competitors is a non-issue. I am perfectly ok with paying 10 bucks for a piece of entertainment that I will be playing for probably a decade.



Shaunodon on 08 April 2025

The only problem I've run into with pricing is finding out you have to pay annually for NSO+expansion pack. I may have known at some point but because I almost never use subs I completely forgot.

I'm only considering the Gamecube controller so I can get free shipping with some Amiibo, now it's like a whole committment...