The Mario Kart Bundle is a limited-time production. Soon you have to buy the game for the full $80 price both digital and physical!

Until they make a new Mario Kart bundle.

I don't know about that, but I've definitely noticed the retro thing exploding into life. Hell, even Gamestop has gotten into the business. Seems the push into virtual goods has caused some people to realize the value of owning real, physical goods. Perhaps our hard-wiring knows something we don't.

In the light of the last couple of years events and people realising that they don't own the content in cloud or downloaded content, the online platforms are likely to shut down at some point of time and that a lot of the popular games are games that you get access to as long as you subscribe to them, I think people start to appreciate games you buy once and have unlimited access to them for the rest of your life.

This seems like sensationalism. There's no significant data that Mario Kart World and Switch 2 will increase the demand for physical media in a big way.

As an optimist I see Mario Kart World retailing for 90 Euros around here while I can get the Switch 2 bundle with the game for 510 Euros, so I'm saving 50 Euros on that game. =P

It is indeed expensive, there's no denying that. The right thing to do if you don't like that is to not buy the game. That is the only language companies, including Nintendo, truly understand. If the game doesn't sell, they will drop the price in no time. Stuff is worth what people are willing to pay for it. We will see if people are willing to spend 90 Euros or 80 Dollars on Mario Kart.

Personally, I have my limits. I stopped buying Milka chocolate because 2 Euros for 90 Grams just seems a little bit too greedy to me. I also don't buy graphics cards anymore for obvious reasons. But you don't see me ranting on the internet about it all day long. Well, technically I'm doing it right now, but I'm just trying to make a point. =P

Fun Fact: I bought MArio Kart 8 twice and spent well over 100 Euros on it. I bought The Binding of Isaac and all expansions three times (PC, PlayStation, Switch) and probaly also spent over 100 Euros on that. And I don't regret it. With games that I play for hundreds and hundreds of hours, price really doesn't bother me all that much anymore. Sure, I wouldn't mind paying less. But it's really not the greatest of my concerns.

Another question is if I will be willing to pay 80 Euros for Donkey Kong Bananza. Because I think that is a game that I will play one time for 20 hours or something and then never touch it again. So I will probably wait for a sale. Which is totally fine.

Japan ans Asia in general still love physical. One reason Play Asia has many physical games we only get digital here and Asia English versions. Why Hard Off stores are everywhere in Japan selling retro games. West has gone more digital I get that but I still am in the physical camp.

The general market will answer the question ultimately deciding the staying fate of 80$ games in this industry.

You know just like the general market actually accepted the increase to 70$ games after a bit of grumbling.

I'll keep buying my Nintendo games nonetheless, unless I don't see a just value in what's being proposed, simple as that.

Anyone wanna make a bet how many more topics this guy will make in defence of the Nintendo prices? My guess is once a week..

Probably zero. The thing is that most people don't even recognize what my threads are about. That's probably because I haven't many during the past few years.

This thread here portrays the overabundance of complaints about MKW's price tag as a rising desire for physical video games, calling it the only possibility for what we are witnessing. But there's actually another possibility: Trolls are coming out in full force whenever a new system is about to launch, so most of these complaints about MKW's price are fake. And that's easy to verify because there's such an easy workaround for MKW's price: Just buy the bundle which will be widely available in the year 2025. And if you weren't going to buy a Switch 2 this year, why would you even waste so much energy to complain when the prices may very well change in the future, be it officially or unofficially through special retailer offers.

I don't make defense threads, I make attack threads. Attacking the faulty logic that is applied to Switch 2 and attacking the people who are bad actors. Naturally, the people who want to see Nintendo fail will be the ones who are the most likely to get offended. That is true for you and it's true for BraLoD who already made a reaction thread. You are welcome to present an argument why Nintendo's prices are a problem in today's market conditions, but I don't expect to see one.