Topic: Do you believe that there is a place for $70(USD) base price games on switch?

With the shadow drop of Skyrim enhanced edition today on the Nintendo eShop it raises a couple interesting questions.

One is there a place for Nintendo (or other 3rd parties) to release a base game (no DLC or extra content) for $70(USD) instead of the standard $60((USD)?

Second question would be if you believe there is a place for the $70(USD) game on the Nintendo eShop what would the game have to be or what would it have to add to an already released game (perhaps was only on other consoles such as call of duty series, Madden, fallout, etc ,etc) base game to justify paying $70(USD)?

I'm usually positive, but no! Please do not make Switch games $70. $60 is already expensive as it is for games, I rather not see a price increase on games.

I do not believe $70 games have a place on any platform, Sony's already doing it on PlayStation AFAIK. I could understand if it's a bundle, like a special edition with extras, or bundled with DLC. The base game alone, I would rather see them stay around $60, or $40 if it's for lack of a better phrase, a "budget" game (I remember My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure launched at $40 instead of $60, that's the only new game I bought this year).

Sorry, I'm usually positive with my gaming opinions, but it will just make newly released games more expensive. Third party games usually go on sale, Nintendo games rarely do.

I doubt that Nintendo would price a game at $70, at least for the time beingz and I don't think Nintendo will allow, or at least want, publishers to price games at $70.

Personally, I don't want them to, but I also think they won't.

Only reason why Skyrim Anniversary Edition is $70 is because it's a bundle of Skyrim and new content, and even then it's a high price since it's an 11 year old game that's $50 on Steam, available for less physically on other platforms, and the non-Anniversary Switch version is already considered overpriced since it's 60 damn dollars, which is $10 more than the Anniversary Edition on other platforms. If they don't lower the price, nobody is gonna buy it.

The moment Nintendo starts charging $70 for their games is the moment I switch (pun intended) over to another gaming platform. It's already bad enough that Nintendo almost never puts their games on sale on top of third-party games such as DOOM 2016 are still $60 on the switch while they cost only $20 on other platforms.

@Deltarogue Like Sony's any better.

People keep saying this is the first 70 switch title, but it's legit just a digital deluxe edition of Skyrim on Switch. That's all. There's tons of other Digital Deluxe editions that are around 90 dollars on switch right now.

On the one hand I'd rather pay less thank you very much. But on the other hand it seems kinda absurd that things like games and tech generally are this magical thing that seems to be immune to inflation. I mean devs deserve a pay rise yeah? We don't want studios folding right? Well maybe games shouldn't be the same price they were in 1995......

And if that's not an option perhaps we shouldn't be shocked with the rise of alternative revenue streams for games

If the Twilight Princess / Wind Waker bundle rumors are true, it'll be the first $70 first party game.

My thoughts exactly. I guess the more surprising thing is that it's Skyrim, a decade-old game that has been released God-knows-how-many times, releasing at this price, rather than a brand new game.

That said, I'm not particularly happy with the ubiquity of digital deluxe versions at this price.

I also wouldn't be happy if Nintendo raised their prices to $70 (presumably £70 here in the UK, as with Sony). The price increase on PS5 is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Playstation games fall in price over time...whereas this doesn't tend to happen to any significant degree with Nintendo's bigger titles. That said, even with the current retail price (is it £55?) I don't ever find myself paying full price - the voucher deal (2 vouchers for £84) is too good to pass up.

That said, many countries' economies are out of whack at the moment with 10%+ inflation rates and devaluation of their currencies (how Nintendo being a Japanese company plays into this, I don't know). On one hand, it might be unreasonable to expect games to stay at the same price forever. One the other, maybe retaining current prices in a climate where people have less expendable income would be a wise decision for Nintendo.

There haven't been any $70 games in US yet? That's interesting.

In Europe, Breath of the Wild's eShop price has been 70€ from the very beginning. The same goes for at least Super Smash Bros. and couple of 3rd party games. I was also surprised when I was browsing Japan's eShop back when SMT V came out and saw its price. The base game goes for ¥9878 which is their equivalent of $70.

I don't think one game having a higher price means anything.

Side note: It's weird that the symbol you use for yen depends on the language you're using. I almost wrote 円 which is what Japan uses but Latin scripts use ¥. China also has their own character for it. Things you don't think about until you start learning the language.

@Buizel
The USD has grown by about 30% in relation to the Yen over the last year. There are margins and other factors ontop of it obviously but basically $10US this time last year would've got you 110Y, now it gets you something like 145Y. So as a company that makes most of it's money exporting product and with a fair chunk of it to the US? So in theory I'd say Nintendo is doing pretty well in that respect

But Japan's economy and their currency is a bit funky. Has been for a while. Honestly, I don't fully understand how what they're doing works....

As already mentioned it's pretty much a Digital Deluxe version but I would be wary about BotW 2. Back when BotW came out it was £60 which is the same price as Deathloop, Smash Ultimate also followed this path so I wouldn't be surprised if BotW 2 is £60. The question is whether Nintendo price increases in the US as in the cases of BotW and Smash Ultimate, the US price was still $60.

Some people here are completely jumping the gun. Nobody is suggesting that $70 be the norm, only that it should be an option for publishers.

If a $10ish premium makes the difference between a proper, complete physical release on a 32/64GB cartridge, then hell freaking yes. But if it’s exploited by greedy and/or careless publishers who want to continue to release unfinished garbage (with lofty post-release patches) on shelves and help themselves to a higher pricing tier, then they can get stuffed.

Well considering how many of those 70 dollar games are filled with microtransactions and the like, no **** their options and **** them.

@Link-Hero At least Nintendo games are generally worth the money and don't have microtransactions or lootboxes. But almost any other publisher pricing $70 on a game does, which just makes it saltier.

$70 for a game isn't even that awful by itself, it's just that we're so used to $60 games at this point that it just leaves a bad taste in our mouth, especially now since we're in the middle of a recession.

If the increase was from $50 to $60 we'd probably still be saying the same exact things.

Nintendo's games tend to sell for years at full price. Since the $69.99 price tag isn't exactly an industry standard one yet, I don't think Nintendo will risk raising their MSRP any time soon.

They'll likely still have more expensive versions for purchase that come bundled with DLC/season passes and the like, which I'm fine with.

Nobody is? I mean I kinda am

If you dig up game catalogues from the mid 90s it wasn't unusual at all for SNES games to be $70US. And Playstation games, which were generally cheaper because they were on discs, were $50US. If you plug $70US in 2022 -> 1995 into an inflation calculator you get $36US. That would've been a budget title in that era. So really, games have been getting significantly cheaper over the years, even when you ignore rapid discount cycle most of them go through

And ontop of that games are significantly more complex than they used to be. I mean sure, there are more tools for developers than there used to be and development is at a significantly higher level. There won't be people on a dev team writing image compression algorithms and doing sprite manipulation tricks. But a high budget game is going to be hundreds rather than dozens of people working for a longer period. Games cost as much as movies now and yet.... we pay less

To be clear, I don't want to pay more and there are reasons why we aren't paying more. We all hate things like microtransactions, season passes and subscriptions but they're also part of the reason why games haven't got more expensive. As is the generally larger market for games and the lower distribution costs. A SNES/N64 era cartridge would've cost more than even the largest Switch cartridges and that's before you consider the basically non-existent cost of digital distribution

But even so, for what you get these days and what you pay? Games are cheap. Even if they upped the price

For Bloody saki, $70 is actually lucky here. Considering Premium games go for far higher if they came at that price I be jumping for joy here. That is pittance compared to having to Buying Gasoline only and don't have to buy it again that's a dream in the sky. So STOP with this whining game costing $70usd you pay that once unless you go microtransaction then that your fault. If someone pays my Gas bill every time I fill up I be the first to complain about buying games costing $70usd. Game DLC free or buy that comes with there gaming territory but microtransactioning gamers every time that is not cool.

@Link-Hero I'm curious if you could provide a list of games that seriously lacked content at launch. I agree the sports games they've been making lately are light on content, at least from an outsider's perspective (I haven't actually played them) but otherwise, I can't think of many examples.

Games getting majority of their sales at launch is the norm. Nintendo games keep their value because they can do that. Their games sell more on a single console than most 3rd party games do on all consoles combined. Even more niche titles like Xenoblade hit millions of units sold while actual big hitters show up in sales charts years after release.

I watched a documentary once about video game sales and the general consensus is that developers and publishers would love to sell their games at full price and do smaller sales once in a while (basically what Nintendo does) but there's way too much competition which leads to games basically not selling at all after launch unless they drop the prices drastically. Cost of making games has increased over the years while the sale price has gone down. It's a bad situation to be in.

I don't want 70€ to be the norm in the future, I doubt anyone does, but I wouldn't mind if there weren't as many sales as there are, as often as there are. It's not the greatest situation for the consumer either. I personally end up buying games at low price I don't plan on playing for a while since I have other games I'm already playing while other games I never end up getting because I'm always waiting for even lower price or I end up grabbing another game instead.

For example, I loved Mario + Rabbids but I'm not getting the sequel at launch because it's Ubisoft and knowing them I can get the game for 20€ or less just months after release. Possibly for 10€ if I wait a bit longer. But when the time comes, it also needs to compete with all the other games that are on sale at the same time. I may end up picking something like Hades instead which is in the same situation.

@Late I felt the Nintendo games with limited content at launch on Switch were:

• Mario Tennis Aces
• Mario Golf Super Rush
• Mario Strikers Battle League
• Super Mario Party
• Animal Crossing New Horizons

Switch Sports and Mario Party Superstars are kind of a middle ground where more content would've helped more with replayability but it's mostly comparable to previous games so I wouldn't say limited content. Both Wii Sports had 5 sports meanwhile Switch Sports has 6 sports (Switch Sports will be more than 6 after updates), most Mario Party games have 6 boards but Superstars has 5 (the 6th one is usually a Bowser board at the end but Superstars doesn't have one).