Topic: Are these prices making you cancel your purchases?

The early-sale thing the UK seems to have almost never happens in the US for Nintendo games.

The base price ( both digitally and physically) for Bananza is $69.99. This did technically have an early sale - physical in one major chain started at 69.00 (99 cents savings). You can currently buy used for about $64 from chains ( likely less from ebay or whatever) but I don't believe the new price has gone below 69 in any major outlet as an official price. Eventually (maybe a few months, maybe a year or 2), Nintendo will almost certainly have the typical sale price between 30 and 33% off. If a game isn't selling well, a store may have anywhere from 10 to 50 % off at some point even when it's not an official Nintendo sale, but those usually aren't early in the game's life cycle.

3rd party games, on the other hand, are on sale often, significantly, and sometimes on day 1.

These prices are making me thirsty!

@Nintoz,

"I'd be interested if anyone in the US could elaborate on the 'Nintendo games never go on sale' ideology."

I'm from the US!

Every once in a while, I go on a Walmart shopping trip with my family. For the past several years, some of the games (even first party ones, but mostly older ones) are cheaper than the beginning price. For example, even two years ago, Kirby Star Allies was around $50 even though it's starting price was $60. None of the Switch 2 games are discounted yet, and none of the digital game download codes have ever gotten discounted except I think Black Friday if I recall. Black Friday sales usually see several years old (at least two years old usually) first party Switch games fall down to $40. Also, I've noticed that just about every first party Nintendo title, once it's at least a year and a half old, usually goes on sale at least once or twice a year in the American eShop sales. So Nintendo games do often go on sale or are available for a cheaper price... if you're willing to wait.

Coming as someone who absolutely hates the price increases Nintendo games have gotten, it hasn't made me "cancel" purchases. Thing is, I very rarely buy games day one or close to launch anymore. I also don't just play Nintendo published games, I do play third party ones on Switch as well.

With that said, I just usually wait for sales to buy games. I remember buying Smurfs: Mission Vileaf for a good $4 during the eShop Christmas sale. Also the same with PC games, I just wait for a sale. It's not like I don't have any games to play and have to buy the latest games, and I enjoy revisiting older games too. Being patient is key.

As for stuff that usually doesn't go on sale very often, like Nintendo stuff, I'll just wait for my birthday or Christmas for those. Last Nintendo published game I got was Princess Peach Showtime, and it was a birthday gift.

Definitely has made me more picky about what I want to play. While $70 for something like Metroid, Donkey Kong Bananza or the next Zelda is definitely something I’m willing to drop that kind of money for, but I’m certainly not dropping that kind of money for bum-ass Mario or Pokemon spinoffs. Even for Mario Kart despite becoming a big franchise for Nintendo is too much, let alone for $80.

3rd parties are bit more contentious. $40 for FFVII is more than reasonable imo, but some of the games like the Ubisoft, EA games, etc, I’ll definitely wait for a sale

I think we're talking about two different things here. Of course retailers will put Nintendo games on sale regularly, and that happens everywhere. However, they can only discount to a very small extent before they're taking a net loss on a sale, and it's extremely unlikely to get more than a 20% discount this way. To Nintendo, these are basically still full price sales, because their cut isn't affected.

Rather, what we don't ever see with Nintendo is the sort of deep discounts that most other publishers will make, when their games are getting a bit old and sales are slowing down. You can take a look at Super Mario Odyssey and Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle as a couple of examples.

They both initially sold for the same price. However, while the second game was published by Ubisoft and has had both a permanent price cut and features in regular sales for as much as an 80% discount, Odyssey doesn't. Nintendo still list it at full price on the eShop most of the time, with only the occasional sale at around a 30% discount.

@WaveBoy I hear ya about the trade in my only thing is unless you do it yourself like selling it to a friend, or selling it used on Ebay or Offer Up or one of the other marketplace sites you just get ripped off. Going into a used game store like Gamestop just irritates me cause they give you next to nothing for it, it doesnt matter the condition or if its C.I.B. they give you the same amount, its almost insulting. I am just better off holding onto it then let those scummy ***** get it. Of course I could also donate it to somewhere like Goodwill I guess but then there's that hassle of loading it up and taking it down there.

@FishyS Yeah I actually went and had a look at Walmart, Target and Best Buy and was shocked to see Mario Kart 8 Deluxe still at $60, eight years later (at Target and Best Buy at least) whereas you'd struggle to find it any more than £37.99 over here. Same could be said for a game as new as Super Mario Bros. Wonder or Echoes of Wisdom!

The regional discrepancy is very interesting and an important element of a conversation like this I think.

@ShieldHero Your story actually reminded me of the only time I've ever been to a Walmart about 7 years ago and finding a Switch demo kiosk which don't really exist in the UK anymore or are very rare. And the game I played...Kirby Star Allies! ...Can't remember the price though ahaha.

I have bought 0 switch 2 games so far, but quite a few dirty cheap second hand switch 1 games with free upgrades.

I've become very selective with handing over money to Nintendo as of lately.
Quitting my family NSO too.

@Nintoz I think the US market is the primary market for Nintendo consoles, Nintendo make huge money there as there is much higher demand in that market so price drops are less necessary. The UK market is a big market for Nintendo but not as big with regards the percentage of the population that buy Nintendo consoles as the US. So there are overstock situations much more frequently and a greater need for discounting. I recently say on hotukdeals the Switch 2 console (solus) refurbished (customer returns as new) going for 299 pounds at Clearance Bargains. I've seen quite a lot of Switch 2 software already heavily discounted admittedly mainly game key cards. In other markets Nintendo are more aggressive on pricing where they haven't got much of a foothold. I seem to remember Switch had free online services in China. Nintendo are good at milking each market to the maximum level they can extract with perhaps the exception being Japan where they price much lower.

It has. I rarely buy new games day one anymore. Especially Nintendo games( I still don't have a Switch 2). These prices are getting more and more ridiculous by the day. I'm sticking with my backlog or buying games used at a lower price.

Yup. I had a pre order for the Switch 2 before it was even revealed. Then came the lackluster reveal along with the price and I had to cancel it. It sucks so incredibly hard to finally have adult money then prices increase to unreasonable degrees. Gaming is now completely unaffordable for me, just like it was when I was a kid. They can say it's because of tariffs all they want, but watch the price not go down when all this tariff crap is over.

@Tasuki
Ya gotta trade at local game stores, not GameStop.

You may think you don’t have any near you (I sure didn’t), but I did a Google search, decided to take a chance on a place near me, and now I have the coolest game store that I hit up once a month or so. Never had a clue, honestly, and I thought I had a pretty good sense of the stores in my area.

The owner is awesome, gives me respectable prices on my trades, and sells new Switch 2 games at 5 bucks off automatically.

But yea, if you want to make the best money selling your games, you have to do it on eBay or another auction site. Makes sense.

Am I imagining it, or did we not have similar when the og Switch launched? Not as high prices as they are now, but a price rise from Wii U prices. First 6-12 months is all about capitalising on the hype and the appetite of early adopters, then things settle down a bit and the prices lower a bit and seem a little more reasonable.

I could be wrong, but given that the Galaxy 1 & 2 collection is not time-limited like the 3D All-Stars was, we can expect it to be available in the UK for £50 or less at some point, just not Day 1.

I'm pretty confident today's economy won't sustain these high Switch 2 prices for very long. Switch 2 might sell 15 million units in its first year, but I don't it will maintain that performance over year 2.

In that case, Nintendo will be faced with either trying to maintain their 'premium' price structure and accept a smaller install base, which could hurt their long-term plans for keeping their IP in the hearts of new generations, or they could gradually lower prices by 10-20% to shift more units and keep more people engaged.

It will be very interesting to see the financials during 2026 - will Nintendo be making as much profit from software as they have done through recent years? Switch sales are likely to diminish significantly because they're generally given less marketing priority and the focus is on Switch 2, so Switch 2 software will have to do some decent numbers. The continuing growth of digital sales will help cover some of that, as will the higher pricing, but it won't surprise me to see the net figure is down.

If Switch 2 Day 1 model had been £300, I'd have one in my hands right now. But at £100 more, my experience of cracking shells and lacklustre battery life from the Day 1 Switch model means I don't want to spend an extra 33% to have a similar experience, so I've been waiting for version 1.1.

However, one of my kids is starting to talk about the idea of us going halves on a Switch 2, so I may enter the game earlier. But there's no way I'll be supporting the Switch 2 library the way I did so obscenely with Switch 1. I'll go back to my Wii U ways of waiting for 33-50% off via the used market, and generally grow a much more streamlined collection than my nearly 700 Switch physicals and god knows how many digitals.

Switch 1 changed my life, for the better. Switch 2 will not be life changing for me, so it just doesn't justify the same level of investment.

But it will be interesting to see what other software comes out that might shift my perspective on that. So far though, I have not been sufficiently inspired.

@gcunit
700 physical Switch games?

Wow. I thought I had a lot lol

@rallydefault Even local ones are as bad as Gamestop because they are all jumping on the retro game craze. Maybe I might be able to score a deal at say a flea market but again that's just too much work for me.

@Tasuki
Uhm… ok? Did you not read my post? lol There are great local stores. You may have to try a few.

There is a bigger one close to me that adverts on instagram and stuff, but they’re basically like GameStop. Sometimes you just need to look a little harder, but they are out there.

Unless I’ve found the only one in the country lol

@rallydefault Um just because you're lucky enough to have that in your area doesnt mean I am. All areas are different. I did have a few a few years ago but a few of them shut down during COVID and one of them was bought out by a guy that raised all the prices and is basically a flipper. I do have a new one that just opened up in my town with decent prices but dont know how they are with trade ins because as I said before I just dont want to deal with the hassel.