#switch 2 prices

[gentleman-velvet]

Damn bro, I’ve never had my interest for a console go from 10 to 0 that fast

And those $80 digital games with $90 physical games are not making it better

Also my condolences to the Canadians

[wolfgabe]

It's somewhat unfortunate that it took Switch 2 to remind gamers that yes, politics does, in fact, affect you whether you like it or not.

[belades]

Thank you for your long post on Switch 2 prices. It does suck that things are more expensive and I totally get why people are having a knee jerk reaction to it, but there are so many external factors demanding a more nuanced take than "Nintendo just greedy."

Exactly, and part of what bugs me is even "Small" bits of misinfo like a $10 difference can make it that much worse. Hell I'm not happy at the price increase.

But like, yesterday MoistKr1tikal(AKA penguinz0 AKA Charlie) put out a video titled "Nintendo is the greediest company ever" and like

It is literally NOTHING but misinformation, with zero fact checking, and barely any acknowledgement that those are anecdotal reports, and it was posted I believe WHILE the real information was available. And that's, well that's frankly really frustrating because in that video he HIMSELF says he thinks while it's upsetting, the console's price is understandable, and that while it's upsetting, he himself thinks $80 games would be fair, even if it's tough to stomach...... And then goes on to go "But charging $90 for every game and you don't even own it, it's not physical, it's just a download code, is reprehensible"

And literally none of that's true but that video has over 5 million views now and for many people that is their first impression of this.

And the difference is "small" enough that frankly, even when corrected, their opinion's likely to remain very different than it would be if they learned about, you know, the actual price and situation.

And it's extra frustrating because while it's probably ill advised, this is a guy who a fair amount of people get news from, and to my understanding despite how casual he is, he has a reputation for fact checking and people trust him. There are STILL people finding out about this from that and he hasn't made an "oops, I made a fucky wucky, literally none of what I said was true" followup.

You have journalists interviewing retailers about nonexistent price differences (Albeit this is about the European version of said games, for all I know there IS a price difference between physical and digital there for Some Fucking Reason.)

I've looked on multiple websites that claimed that switch games have a price difference between physical and digital or that they top out at $90 and not a single one has issued a retraction and it's just.... It's frustrating and baffling.

I've also seen people go "Nintendo knew people would hate the prices so they didn't include them in the direct" and like..... No? I can't guarantee that had no part in it, but it takes two seconds to figure that out as well. Nintendo kind of infamously bases their base prices for games and systems outside of Japan on USD, I say infamous because it fucks over a lot of consumers in other countries.

And the US has very publicly been on the verge of massive blanket tariffs. Meaning that tariffs could change the potential price of the Switch 2 between the time of the recording and the time the direct aired, or even shortly AFTER the Direct aired. And if Nintendo brought this up in the Direct, lunatics would probably take it as a "political stance", and other people would just be kinda stressed by the reminder of that shit, plus it'd potentially change the length of/amount of content in the direct across different regions.

And one can further infer this from the fact that, according to a video I watched last night from former Nintendo Treehouse employees, at a recent press event (possibly the same day?) Nintendo explicitly said they won't answer any questions about the price "or politics." And the only political question people would ask them would be tariffs.

And then, lo and behold, that very same day, Trump announces unprecedented 10-20% blanket tariffs against every country on earth with the conspicuous exception of Russia, and the conspicuous INCLUSION of multiple landmasses with literally zero human population, listed as if they were countries.

And, well, remember on my post where I said that the Switch OLED costs $350, the increased prices of the dock and joycons (both due to pretty notable manufacturing differences that would absolutely raise the price even just for materials) is $50, and that's $400 right there? Again, the "basic" minimum tariff that was announced that day was about 10% (yes this link is almost pure propaganda but it is an official statement by the US government reading "alright fuckos, 10% tariffs for everybody"), and 10% of $400 is $40 and oh look, there's $440 (technically $446, the dock's MSRP is actually $106. Also there is, in fact, risk of the retail price being HIGHER because most Switches are currently manufactured in Vietnam which has blanket tariffs of nearly 50% what the fuck. Tariffs aimed toward Japan are about 20% if you're curious, )

This is excluding some price weirdness with how the switch 2 is rolling out in Japan (there's two versions, and the US is only getting the Latter, better one) along with the price difference between Switch OLED already being weird between Japan and the US, although I wouldn't be surprised if expected tariffs are the whole reason Japan's even doing that. Shoot, my hyperfocus and need to be thorough crept in again. Oh well, I suppose this covers some notable information I haven't seen anybody else talk about?

UPDATE:

My understanding of the timeline is, Trump announced 10% tariffs against all countries roughly that morning, saying he'd add reciprocal tariffs on top of that for "The worst offenders" (read: almost everyone) that evening. And that evening, he announced, well, the shitshow you're probably hearing about now (not that 10% tariffs against all countries isn't already a shitshow).

Why am I mentioning this? Well:

Nintendo has officially halted all US preorders of the Switch 2 based on those combined tariff while they figure out what the fuck to do.

Whether you think the peripherals increase+10% matches the final price too closely to be a coincidence, or you think this announcement fairly decisively proves that it is in fact a coincidence, I'll leave up to you.

[belades]

So hot take: I don't think they'll do it because it'd be a risk and Nintendo HATES risk, but I think the best move for Nintendo would be to announce RE the tariffs thing: "We will not be changing the MSRP for the console. We are determining whether to change it for the games, but we want as many people to experience this as possible and are willing to take a financial hit to let as many people get one as possible, especially as we are confident that people will enjoy it enough for us to make back the loss through worldwide digital and physical purchases."

That would frankly let them completely dodge the current controversy of the console and games pricing while simultaneously making them look like the heroes of the situation, especially considering pushback against the tariffs is accelerating to the point that it's frankly extremely possible those tariffs won't still be around in June. Of course, I think they shouldn't dodge the pricing controversy, it's important and needs to be talked about. However, the pricing for games is a complex subject and it would be understandable for Nintendo to not want to be talking about that with consumers right at the time that consumers have very little goodwill and trust in their intentions, especially due to the risk of burning quite a few bridges in the process. (What ISN'T nearly as complex pricing wise though is buying indie games. Support indie developers!)

[icelynia]

Different person here…the games range from 70-80 USD so far .. it doesn’t make much of a difference. I know, but just clarifying)… the 80 seems to be for the really expansive games (I’m assuming) while 70 seems to be the norm….but again more information is needed for this

Also I think the whole game share thing where one person has the game (Mario Kart for eg), but can play with others who don’t have the game, leans into the whole family thing…then there’s the game lending…so there are options for families…not the best…but yeah

True true true! I love the game sharing announcements they’ve made in the past week(ish) and that can make it easier to share games (get one game even digitally for the whole family and each system gets it for a week), but it’s still some outrageous pricing, especially for a digital game. I know that there’s always a price increase between systems, but getting to the point where one game can be priced for $90 is ridiculous. Let’s just hope that this isn’t going to be the norm for Switch 2 games and that they’re just highballing their first games on the system.

I really hope that you don’t need to be on the same WiFi every time a game is shared, since most of the people I personally would use the game loan programs with live at least an hour away from me.