Mario Kart World
Nintendo
Of course there have been Nintendo-related controversies in the past, but console war arguments? Culture war fights? Almost never in recent years, and when Nintendo gets in hot water with fans, it must be something significant. And I cannot remember when I’ve seen something quite like this.
News just broke that Nintendo was delaying US pre-orders of the Switch 2 due to uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs and market conditions, but even before that, Nintendo was, and still is, undergoing a crisis about pricing that started the moment its recent hour-long livestream ended.
The $450 console isn’t the main focus, though that is expensive, $50 more than a PS5, $150 more than the original Switch and $50 more than the $400 price many were predicting. One reason the Switch did so well was its relatively inexpensive barrier to entry, but that does not seem to be the case now, priced right up there alongside its rivals, if not above them.
Rather, the focus was on the reveal that what will likely end up being the most popular game on the console, the brand new Mario Kart World, would cost $80, $10 more than the $70 industry standard which only became the standard at the start of this console generation a few years ago, which is still not over. In some regions, that’s €80 euros with €90 euros for a physical addition. As of now, that $20 bump for physical doesn’t seem to exist in the US but, hey, tariffs now, so who knows.
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This has manifested in a few ways, social media complaining, sure, with even some high profile industry figures saying these price points were a pretty sharp turn-off. But on Nintendo’s Treehouse livestreams, the entire chat, nonstop, has been spamming “DROP THE PRICE” regarding the recent announcements, namely focused on the $80 price point.
We’ve also heard from ex-Nintendo PR reps Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang talking about how this is a “crisis moment” for Nintendo, something you really never hear about happening to…Nintendo:
It’s a bizarre situation, because Nintendo appears to be trying a concept about a specific game being at a higher price point, one that it knows will probably be its best seller (as Mario Kart 8 was on the original Switch). The new Donkey Kong game, for instance, is $70. But one fear is that if Nintendo can do this with a big game, who’s to say other publishers won’t try? It’s easy to imagine big series trying to also follow in Nintendo’s footsteps here and soon enough we get $80 Call of Duty and God of War games. There has been a long running half-joke that GTA 6 is such a big game it could charge $100 a copy and people would buy it. Well, if Nintendo is literally doing this, could Rockstar pull that trigger, for real?
With just two months until release with pre-orders already live in most regions, it seems unlikely Nintendo will reverse course. But almost everyone, from fans to analysts, seems to think they have made a big blunder here.
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