@firebush03

Actually it seems like physical is going up, not digital going down.

Looking at European stores Yoshi is cheaper than other Nintendo releases, at 60 euros digital and 70 physical.
Donkey Kong Bananza for example were 70 digital and 80 physical.

Meanwhile Donkey Kong is $70 in the US, digital and physical, so Yoshi is not in price parity with Donkey Kong, as it costs the same $70 physical but $60 digital.

Which means Yoshi is a $60 game being boosted to $70 phisically.
As it matches Donkey Kong physical price in the US, but it does not in EU, where it is cheaper.

Most Nintendo games should be going to be $80 in the US for now on, with the Mario Kart like games being $90. Physical might have just became $10 more expensive from now on.

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet.

You can look at this from two different angles:

1. Yoshi was always a $60 game, and its $70 physical price tag suggests that physical is going up
2. Yoshi was always a $70 game, and it's $60 digital price tag suggests digital is going down

We just have to stay tuned.

I'm using another region as the base.

In the EU Yoshi is cheaper physically than Donkey Kong, a $70 game in the US.

In the US both are the same price physically.

It leads me to conclude the price for physical went up in the US, othersiwe it would also be cheaper like in the EU.

Mario Kart World is more expensive in the US than Donkey Kong, it's also the case for it in the EU. So it does work that way for a game priced higher than the regular $70 game too.

Unless EU has other Nintendo games cheaper than Donkey Kong but their price is the same in the US, there should not be any reason to believe the digital price went down rather than the physical price went up.

Having more games will indeed confirm it, but my conclusion right now is that. I originally found it strange for Nintendo to not announce it as a price drop for digital media, which would be a clear term to have PR about as a "good move", which led me to go compare the game situation in another region.

I'm not saying it's 100% sure the case, but I can't conclude otherwise right now.

I'd define it as having permanent unrestricted access to something outside of extreme circumstances like a house fire or home robbery. For ownership the real issue isn't physical vs digital but DRM since a digital game without DRM that has the files backed up on multiple external sources is the most secure form of game ownership out there.

And that's the kicker. Digital would be amazing with almost no faults if you could back it up. There are not many legal opportunities to do so. 

I imagine that'll change at some point. For now though I'm not worried about buying games on Steam since that is basically guaranteed to still be around 30 years from now with people in the 2050's still downloading and playing Half-Life 1 for the first time.

I share Svennoj's opinion. But I just don't care that much about video game ownership. And recently I "buy" most my games when they're in deep sale. I still value physical games, just not as much as before.

As for Yoshi's pricing thing:

Nintendo is clearly facing a serious challenge. Full Switch 2 cartridges were already said to cost around $17 before NAND prices shot up and continue to. At the rate this is going, they will be making a lot more profit from selling you a digital game at $40 than physical at $70. GKC and the price difference between digital and physical (which may increase over time) are Nintendo's attempt to accelerate digital adoption.

For practical purposes, I consider it owning if my access to my purchase is either guaranteed or I can take reasonable steps to guarantee it myself. For me, that includes physical games that don't require activation and DRM-free digitally distributed games with convenient backup methods. Notably that excludes Steam, although I consider Steam a highly reliable service for the foreseeable future (time after Gabe is uncertain though, but rapid changes after him are probably unlikely).

Physical copies obviously might not last forever, but that's not a question of ownership - it's a separate issue. That said, in my experience physical copies last a long time, assuming you keep them well.

I really like this answer. This really hits closest to where I’ve been feeling recently.

Having it in my hands working 100% without the need for the internet, seeing it in my gameroom.