Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I honestly don't buy anywhere near as many games as I used to because I'm generally not playing games as much. Outside of major Nintendo releases, of which there honestly haven't been that many lately, I'm mostly picking up stuff from a few years ago. Which is usually heavily discounted. Compared to other expenses the cost of gaming is a non-factor. So if the prices at launch went up a bit it probably wouldn't bother me much if at all

Not something I'm too worried about especially given the current state of other parts of the gaming/tech industry currently. I mean if people want to start charging $90/100AU again for games at launch? Doesn't really bother me that much. I'm far more concerned about the fact that two year old graphics cards at retail currently cost more than double they did at launch and how long that's going to drag out for. Because that will eventually bite everyone if it doesn't correct itself soon...... which may include console makers raising the price of games to cover it

@Octane Counter-counter argument

Digital only consoles. We've seen physical PS5 and Xbox games drop in price. Digitally, not so much.

I'm stuck with a digital PS5. Only once preorders were gone and mine was locked in, obviously not going to change it to a disc one that no one has at the time, did Sony mention the new pricing of £70, up from £50

But historically their digital sales on first party games have been good, across all digital systems thus far. I reckon in a year the games will be on some decent sales.

Lol. Lmao. Here we are a year later, best sale on some of those launch games has been £20 off.

Sure we can say Nintendo only does 33%, but that's from £50 down to £34. That's fairly palatable. Going from £70 (Still finding this hard to swallow) to £50, yeah it's a saving, but it's also still a full price game really.

It's a bit like where I work: products come in, few weeks later get a price cut. That new price is what the business "intended" to sell them for, when factoring in costs and the like for it to be profitable. Any that sell at the initial higher price is just a bonus markup.

I suppose that's my fault for not seeing the warning signs of Sonys push to be as much like the Western third parties they lean coming over the hills.

I agree games drop in prices more. But it was never about a "this console is worse than that console" comparison, so that fact seems somewhat irrelevant. It's just about, "I'm not paying $70". Nothing more, nothing less. Though if we're really getting into "which is better" then even a lower price can't make up for lack of gyro and hybrid play. I'd sooner buy a hybrid game for $50 with gyro than get it for $20 without either. But again, this was never about comparing consoles and making claims of which is better.

I typically buy day one. And I buy a lot of games, so that extra $10 could translate to hundreds of extra dollars per year, and as I get older, I'm spending less and less on games. But ya, they'll eventually drop. Eventually. It's been almost a year and Ratchet and Clank is still $70. The lowest it got was $50, which hardly seems like a deal from the $60 price point it should have been. Pretty sure the same is true for Demons Souls. So PS5 games definitely aren't dropping in price nearly as fast, at least, the exclusives aren't. And those are the only games I buy on that system, since non-Switch multiplats are automatic Steam purchases for the gyro (and soon, hybrid with Deck).

But ya, games do eventually drop price. And that's exactly what I'll be doing. Waiting for price drops. I'd gladly buy day one for $60 if it's a game I really want, but at $70 I'll wait. And if I'm gonna wait, the wait needs to be worth it. Not gonna hold off a year just to save $10-20. Otherwise I'd rather just eat the day one cost.

But then there are the 3rd party games that see hyperinflation starting the day of release. $70 becomes $60 by week's end, $40 within 2 weeks and $30 within a month... that just feels like a sucker punch to the gut for someone like me who likes to buy day one. $70 games, alongside holding off and waiting for Switch/Steam ports, is teaching me patience. They're betting on gamers giving in to their higher pricing, exclusivity deals and delayed ports out of impatience. But so help me God, they'll flinch before I do.

@Haruki_NLI Ouch, that's why I don't buy digital, and digital-only consoles. You're completely dependent on what the publishers is going to charge for the product. With physical retail games there's the benefit of competition between retailers, so prices on average will almost always be lower than digital.

@JaxonH To be fair, Ratchet & Clank came out in June, almost exactly six months ago. Though I'm kinda surprised to see it's still at $70/€80 on the online store. I expected it to be lower than that. I'm surprised to see that PS5 games in general hold their price for this long. Anyway, I can find physical copies for €55, which is like 40-45% off. Not too bad. I expect the low availability of the PS5 may also play a role in this. As it's still a much wanted console, and any new buyers will also be looking at games to play, so I suspect most PS5 exclusives are still in high demand.

Wasn't Shadow of the Tomb Raider one of those games that was 50% off in like a month? lol. Yeah, I am glad I didn't buy that one at launch.

Agree 100% with this, this is my stance/feeling too.

Talking about games, I got to and beat the first boss in Loop Hero… then choose to keep going and died lol. Luckily it still seems to keep my story going, but that is a lot of resource lost.

Gotta be honest, I was kinda so so about Loop Hero to begin with but with each loop I found myself getting a little more addicted. I don’t normally like rogue like/light whatever they are called games but something about Loop Hero just vibes for me. I like how it isn’t about like the skill of one’s dexterity, but about how one properly gears and manages what they have at their disposal.

My main issue is despite what the NL review says, I actually think progress at the beginning feels quite slow. The game opens up a fair amount and adds more variation after the first dozen or so loops when you start getting enough resources to properly upgrade your base and change around your deck etc but those first few loops are kinda whatever, and I wonder how many people will bounce off because of that.

I’m still only a few upgrades in, but I’ve already seen pretty game changing things introduced since I started playing, that made beating the boss possible. It is a satisfying, tangible, loop of progression I haven’t really felt in other rogue like/lite games I have played.

Like I played that Hades game everyone raved about and the first boss just absolutely beats me into the floor. I am not carrying much at all into each new loop, it is just incremental dribbles of progression, putting a lot of the progression in my dexterity and the idea of having to do hundreds of runs just to get enough power to get through the opening boss doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

Whereas I feel like I carry a lot of new progression with each unlock in Loop Hero, giving a real meaningful sense of momentum rather than just mindless repetition. Maybe this’ll kill it long term, but I’d rather my progression isn’t held at arms length so they can tack on another 0 on the end of my playtime. This is why I haven’t really enjoyed these sorts of games previously.

I think that - on balance - having looked after my games collection (including the boxes) that I could now sell the Nintendo first party games I've accumulated down the years for at least the original box price (sometimes much more than I actually paid when new).

I've played those games for hundreds of hours and they did originally cost hundreds of pounds but in effect the games have ultimately cost me nothing - except the opportunity lost of potentially earning a small amount of interest on the money.

This is partly because Nintendo has defended the value of their games. I'm not saying it's necessarily always the correct thing to do (I think some Nintendo games are over-priced, that some games need a more enticing price to attract a broader audience long term and that Nintendo should launch a "Nintendo Selects" budget range for Switch) but it's by no means "anti-consumer". I know where I stand with Nintendo's pricing - even if I think everyone is agreed that it's a relatively steep initial investment.

PS5 games will probably go back to the pricing status quo when the chip shortage eases up and more people are able to buy one. There's no sense in dropping the price of those games right now because, if you own a PS5, you're inordinately likely to be the sort of consumer who pays top dollar for games at launch anyway. Price dips are meant to tap into the wider market outside of established core fanbases, but, right now, the lack of availability of PS5 consoles makes that demographic almost non-existent on PS5.

@Ralizah
I found some PS5 games are as cheap as PS4 games in my country, usually the smaller 3rd party games. (450,000 - 600,000 IDR)
Not every PS5 games got $70 price tag, even the $60 games here sold with price around 680,000 - 750,000 IDR (under $60).

@Anti-Matter nice. Which games are they

@Player_One
Bibi & Tina at Horse Farm, Planet Coaster, Overcooked All You Can Eat, Override 2, Kitaria Fables, etc.
They are tagged from 400,000 - 650,000 IDR.

@Anti-Matter that’s normal. Do you really think overcooked on the ps5 will be 70 dollars. Please understand

@Anti-Matter Yeah, shovelware and casual fare isn't as highly in demand, so the price will be more reasonable in general.

Yeah the inflated cost - at least for now - only really applies to what companies can sell as “triple a first party” titles, so shovelware, indies and budget titles aren’t currently at any higher of a cost. Although if they can con enough people into paying the extra for the marked up titles, I will imagine the prices for all titles will start creeping up.

Isn't it fairly normal for games that launch during the first 12-18 months hold their price longer, just taking advantage of that novelty/hype factor that comes with 'next gen', and the limited amount of competition on the platform?

Yea, you are ultimately right. It was gonna happen at some point or another. And mobile games with microtransactions were always gonna be a thing no matter what we did with horse armor.

But I do think there is a reality where gamers generally didn't buy those early console DLC packs, and publishers found it not worth their time to include that stuff to the degree we see today.

I know it seems far-fetched, but consider that PC games at the time already had paid expansions and such on the regular for a long while (some on disc, though some downloaded), while console games peacefully coexisted and didn't really include much of it, even after consoles like PS2 and Xbox started connecting to the internet regularly.

It's all about the money return for the publisher. Even reskins and seemingly innocuous cosmetic DLC takes a bit of dev time, and therefore money. If console gamers never really bit the hook on that stuff, publishers wouldn't waste their money paying their dev teams to keep making it.

It's all academic, anyway. We live in our reality lol

I think it feels as bad as it does, because as games have become increasingly rammed with predatory monetisation and increasingly chunks of content are sliced out of the core game and locked behind paywalls, we have also seen games increasingly released in a broken, unfinished, state as well.

I am not saying the monetisation would ever feel good, it just feels worse to be sold a literally broken game at full price andwhile the game itself isn’t finished, it has got a fully fleshed MTX shop on launch like it’s pretending it’s free to play and it is literally the only thing that works and is finished.

It’s not a passing strategy, at least, it won’t be if it normalizes.. Once they go up, they don’t come back down unless they got pushback. It’s a one way ticket in that respect. As soon as it becomes normalized, it’s a wrap.

I remember buying Wipeout 2048 on Vita and it came with a paper insert saying you had to pay $10 for the “Online Pass”. Apparently a bunch of games started doing that back then. I was like what? I bought the game, now you’re charging me $10 more just to play online for a few years while the servers are up? That strategy eventually got dropped because ppl weren’t having it.

But with Xbox Live introducing paid online, it became normalized, so by the time PS implemented it, it was too late. People had already accepted it. And certainly by the time Nintendo joined it, it had been normalized for a decade.

But I’m not confident people will push back against $70 games. If ever there’s a chance to break the trend, it has to be now. If people don’t push back now, you can expect every single game to be $70 in a few years, and you can expect Switch 2 games to adopt that pricing as well. And even if Switch gamers rejected it at that time, that would just turn away companies from releasing games on Switch altogether. Higher cart costs and lower profits. Why bother. So if we’re going to reject it, it has to be now. Cut it down at the root.

It would be one thing if inflation was actually eating into their profits and this was an attempt to recoup losses, but that’s definitely not the case. Costs are not increasing due to inflation, they are increasing due to games with larger and larger budgets which garner larger and larger profits. And at the end of the day, costs increasing 30% means nothing if their profits double. And we consistently see record breaking profits. Which means there’s no justification for a price increase except greed. I would be more accepting if their profits were shrinking due to paying developers higher wages or something, but when their profits are expanding at an unprecedented rate, and it’s all going into the pockets of upper management and stockholders… it’s unwarranted.

I don't buy that 70 dollar games are going away. They should because people don't have the money for that, no matter what "BUT ACTUALLY INFLATION" dweebs will tell you, but I can't imagine a company being like "well we'll charge less for now on" unless its actually costing them enough people actually buying the games.

I mean, I'm almost sympathetic to at least Sony because y'know, its not their fault. In a sane, reasonable world, 70 dollars would make sense and they'd be correct. Yet here we are.

@kkslider5552000
Inflation is robbery of the people. It’s not a good thing. It’s an unfortunate reality, but that doesn’t make it ok.

When I hear the, “ya but inflation” argument I can’t help but facepalm. That’s like saying, “ya but you’re getting robbed buying groceries and gas, so you should be totally fine getting robbed on this too! Even though their costs aren’t actually rising due to inflation and their profits are surging, and consumer prices typically only go up due to inflation when rising costs of supplies puts a dent in their profits and they have to pass that on”.

It’s like, “this thing over here is totally not being affected by inflation, in fact profit margins are at record levels, but it’s OK for them to charge you more out of greed because other things have gone up due to inflation. We’ll just use the fact you get robbed in other areas as an excuse to justify it”.

Idk what you mean about not their fault though (unless that was sarcasm). They started this whole thing in the first place.

@JaxonH When there's pushback, the goal isn't completely scrapped but rather approached in a different way. For example loot boxes got massive pushback which led to the creation of the battle pass which in some ways is a lot worse than loot boxes but is more accepted so the norm for multiplayer games became FTP + Battle Pass + Premium Currency store.

Another very good example is look at Don Mattrick's vision of the XB1 at the infamous May 2013 reveal which had a gigantic backlash and then years later it became that Series X|S is actually a lot closer to that initial vision than you may think.

@WoomyNNYes Yeah, physical eshop gift cards have an area which you scratch it off which reveals the code that you redeem on the eshop.