Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

What gets me most about the $70!!!!! is that people spend a ***** tonne on games yet baulk at another tenner. Stop buying every ***** game that comes out. They're not going anywhere, you dont need to build a backlog.

@Rambler I mean, to be fair the people upset about it have a reason to be upset. Nintendo isn't like Sony where there's a sale if you wait a bit after the launch of their games. TotK is going to stay 70 dollars for the rest of the Switch's lifecycle. Sure, BotW recently got a sale, but that's because they're trying to ride off the waves of TotK's release.

@VoidofLight
Well yes if they only buy digital, never use those Nintendo 2 game vouchers; and never buy gift cards at a discount with a credit card that gives cashback and also use their gold coins.

However if you buy it physical, there are always sales. And the second-hand market. I've preordered at less than £60; others have preordered at less than what I'm paying.

But Nintendo should reduce the price of old older games. BoTW is not going to sell after ToTk, so it needs a permanent cut.

But the take-away I'm getting is that people are complaining about $10 in a hobby that costs hundreds, if not, thousands.
People are comparing Sony to Nintendo with their pricing practices, as you have mentioned. I will assume that they have a PS4 or 5 as well as the switch.
So in UK terms, that's a console that >£450 (ps5) plus another that's £300 (oled) - that's £750 before you've bought a game, plus you probably want additional controllers at ~£50 each
(I was going to go on about large 4k TVs but you can get a 4k 50" lg for £400 from lg themselves - not too shabby)
It's not cheap really, but there are ways of making it cheaper. I have yet to buy a game at full price for instance (oh no - I bought the full Capcom Arcade Stadium when it came out), and peripherals are discounted too.

And really? $10??? I'm more worried about the price of diesel, food, gas and electricity. Which, tbf, quite a lot of the complainers probably don't need to worry about at the moment.

@VoidofLight
Sorry that was an insanely long post to your very reasonable comment

@Rambler Generally though, people do tend to see consoles as investments. Things they'll keep along with them for years, so they're more willing to pay a heavier fee. With games, 10 dollars doesn't seem to be that much of a price increase, but it can limit how many games someone would be willing to purchase in a short amount of time. Generally, I just tend to wait for sales on PS5, unless there's a game I really need to get. For Nintendo games, there are the vouchers and gold points, but shops in general seem to be iffy. At times they will go down in price if you want a physical copy, but from my experience most of the time I just find it at the suggested retail price.

@Rambler I’ve had similar but different trail of thought about tennergate although more aligned to how disposable and instant gratification things are becoming particularly in music and movies. The promise of streaming meant musicians could expand their fans so they can then sell more merch and gig tickets only it wasn't much of an expansion so tixs prices have gone up (yet people are moaning about it after listening to the artist for free) to compensate for no longing making money from an album being sold because streaming hasn’t helped push artists as people are too silly to be able to listen to an album without getting bored because not everything is a banger so they don’t build an appreciation for the talent and skills. The same with movies the instant access to so much (often without curation) means instead of watching amazeball movies people are watching easy big budget stuff and confusing deep with lots of franchise lore slowly meaning the mid budget films are getting less made because they are not getting the returns on them because it’s not Shrek, Minions or Marvel.

With inflation games are cheaper than they use to be and with sales people are finding it normal to have excess in the form of a gaming backlog. With production costs skyrocketing and user bases aren’t expanding like they once were so somethings got to give. I’m expecting to hear I got my monies worth from Kingdom Sad which maybe it isn’t so bad as it will make people chose their games more carefully which in turns they actually appreciate the game rather than jumping to the next one to keep them busy from boredom to avoid thinking for another few minutes.

Not to say I think/want movies, games or music to cost more to price people out but by being cheap as chips there’s a lack of appreciation now and as well as a dumbing down.

It also confirms ‘murica is a very glass half empty country. When Breath came out the game was a tenner cheaper than everywhere else in the world yet they didn’t say a thing but how lucky it is to be cheaper. Whilst now an extra tenner is due the yanks are outraged and Nintnendo are just lucky gamers don’t leave the house otherwise they would be storming the Nintendo headquarters dressed as some kind of Nintendo Shaman to stop the count of an extra tenner.

As shown by the past few years, acceptance of $70 game prices resulted in it becoming more widespread but with any past microtransaction strategies under lower game prices remaining unchanged.

Given the existence of Nintendo Systems (the Nintendo + DeNA collaboration going beyond mobile stuff), that could mean a new Mario Kart being $70 and functioning similar to Mario Kart Tour for example.

@Grumblevolcano That would be awful. A full console game being 70 dollars but functioning like a mobile game, or being at an incomplete launch state with free updates down the road. That's a way to quickly sever my interests in this company, if it ends up going that way.

On another note:
Do you guys think the game will get payed DLC?

Yeah, that better not happen.

Your earlier points - yes, totally a console is an investment, so will - hopefully! - be vfm in the long term.
It's probably more likely my outlook, but buying a stack of games at any one time doesn't work for me or is financial viable really. It will limit some to how many games they are willing to buy at once - but like I said, they are not going anywhere soon, so I really don't understand the need to buy everything at release, especially if you can't afford an additional $10. If you can't afford an extra $10 but are buying multiple games a month then you need to look at the reasons for your spending.

Easy to find below RRP in the UK, must be an American thing?

@Jump - yeah the world has everything for free or nearly free and baulks at the actual artists trying to make a living. If they actually bought the music instead of streaming it then other prices would equalise. It's not difficult - it's in the hands of the consumer

The film thing is just easy consumption of mass-produced products. It will harm smaller productions as tastes and output reduce to a simplified sugar-fix.

I do find it amusing that a huge chunk of popular history and culture is available at nearly everyone's fingertips, yet tastes are becoming increasingly homogenised.

And yes, an extra $10 might give someone pause and appreciate the game, rather than just consuming the current stack that are in vogue at that moment.

I'm sure that there is a comparison with fast fashion and supply chain ethics, but I can't think of it!

@VoidofLight I expect TOTK will get the same sale treatment that BOTW got. I expect TOTK will get a black friday sale. After BOTW's first year, BOTW got 10-20% off at least a few times a year, like christmas/holiday season, springtime, or August/September. I would expect the same for TOTK.

While Dekudeals sales history for BOTW only goes back to February 2018, you can see it's been on sale quite often. https://www.dekudeals.com/items/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of...

I've wondered the same thing. I could see them wanting to move on to the next gen zelda ASAP, and I wonder about the optics of Nintendo adding $20 DLC on top of it's first $70 USD title. On the other hand, it's probably very cost effective & profitable to put out a $20 dlc. I guess we'll see. I'm very curious to see how things play out.

Since they already milked the crap out of the BOTW map & assests with two games, I won't be disappointed if there isn't paid dlc.

@VoidofLight That's part of the reason I'm not keen on a new Mario Kart happening. MK8 is a 2014 game and has stuck to Wii U era methods of monetization (i.e. normal DLC) which is good but a new game in 2024 would be more likely to use more recent methods of monetization (e.g. battle pass) which is terrible.

The other thing is that MK8 Deluxe is getting close to becoming MK Ultimate. A few more years of DLC and that game would have every track in the franchise, perhaps every character and battle arena too. It's a shame about Sky Garden and Sunset Wilds (if it ends up in the Booster Course Pass) being very simplified compared to the Super Circuit originals though.

So quick question does anyone know if the weapons in Tears of the Kingdom are as fragile as weapons in Breath of the Wild? Trying to find this out as this will make me decide if I am getting the game or not.

@Tasuki We've only seen a tree branch degrading in durability, which looked to be about the same as a tree branch from BOTW. However, the Fuse ability would allow you to greatly increase the durability of practically every single weapon, including tree branches which were shown off.

@StarPoint So you will be able to increase weapon durability in Tears?

@Tasuki Yep, along with attack power and likely other stats

@StarPoint Thanks for the info, I might look into it then. That was my biggest disappointment with BotW.

That's my take too, they would want a new Zelda for the new console sooner rather than later so even if DLC is easy money a new Zelda to push console sales is the way to go I reckon.

I think it comes down to when the new console releases. Champions Ballad released in December 2017, 9 months after BotW launched so similar timing with TotK DLC would mean around February 2024 which is also around when The Indigo Disk DLC launches for Scarlet/Violet (Pokemon uses "Late [insert year]" to describe November of that year so Winter 2023 likely means January/February 2024).

So if a new console was to release in early 2024 I could see an outcome where the launch lineup was something like Metroid Prime 4, final wave of TotK DLC, Splatoon 3 Side Order, Scarlet/Violet The Indigo Disk, MK8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass 2).

However if a new console was to release later on (e.g. 2025), I could see TotK not getting DLC so that the next new Zelda could release somewhat early in the console's lifespan.

I'm leaning towards the latter but we'll find out soon enough either way as BotW's DLC was announced before BotW released so if there's TotK DLC it'll likely be announced before TotK releases.