Amazon UK Offers Nintendo Switch Downloads, Cost More Than Boxed Equivalents

I have nothing to say I just wanted to be first. Anyway it's weird as we have no details on online, we should get a direct this week (this week because half term and I be up be whenever yay). Oh. Guess I did have something to say.

Cartridge, absolutely

yeah of course it costs more you know how much it costs for them to make downloads

£60 for a download no thank you.
It's pricing like this that makes me dread the idea of a digital only future.

£60 for a Wii U eShop code? Good grief that's steep...!

Still contemplating getting 1-2 switch at launch. On one hand I'd like a good multiplayer game that shows off the joycons, on the other hand I imagine it'll become rather cheap soon enough.

How can it be more to download! Should be £10 cheaper at least!

Can't believe this continues to be a thing. If you can sell something physical for a price why is digital more? Who's making the profit where it'd be lost on the cheaper retail copy?

I guess we're just too used to digital medium being so devalued in other things such as music, smartphones and movies.

They really have not got the hang of a digital store, Thank god for the indies making the store worth while.

I usually opt for whatever is cheapest, though I'll grab physical if its price is similar to digital. In this case, I'd certainly choose physical.

PSN pricing is the same it's not just a Nintendo thing. Until digital titles are a lot cheaper than their cartridge or disc counterparts I'll be buying physical.

"Access this content the moment it comes out"
I have to wait like 14 hours to download Xbone and PS4 games. . .
Next day delivery can be quicker lol

More proof that digital is indeed the future.

@The__Goomba
If they handle it like steam across all console then I would be all for it.

If you're going to pay full eShop price, you might as well just pay from the eShop.

They have to keep the eshop prices the same as the rrp because high street retailers would stop stocking the products if they didn't.

@Jolt
Lol at least you had the honesty to say it. I always have said some people just want to be first.

Here's the thing. If you want to charge exactly the same for the digital as physical, ok. It's scummy but whatevs. But to charge more for less cost to a company?

I'm sure someone will explain why I'm wrong. Doesn't matter to me. It's scuzzy practice that's as anti consumer as it is illogical.

Even e shop games on 3ds and Wii U are double and sometimes triple the price of the physical games ... this is Nintendo

Btw there is AAA games on Amazon for ps4 and Xbox one that you can purchase for 5$ ... it's not Amazon ! I think it's Nintendo

Having the security of always owning the game and not having to fill up my hard drive are the biggest reasons to go physical. This is another reason.

Taking a leaf out of Nintendo's rip-off eShop book. Nobody should buy from either of them.

Y'all are a bunch of negative nancies over every. single. thing. I really need to learn to stop scrolling after the article, because the comments section always manages to kill any sort of vibe. Even if the news is good, leave it to NintendoStrife commenters to kill your enthusiasm. Ugh.

It's not so much the cost of stuff it's the value for money. And that's really to be missing.

This is something I've been interested in knowing. If the codes are cheaper in a different country, can we buy them, and will they work on our Switch?

At these prices they probably won't sell many.

@The__Goomba Digital distribution is really great on Steam. It's okay on PS4, lots of good sales there. Not too sure about Xbox.

Nintendo still has a lot to learn in the digital department.

A lot of people moaning about the price being more expensive digitally than physically, and I understand that. But I think a lot are not realising this is how Sony and Microsoft operate their online stores. This is what you should expect going forward into a digital age, like it or not.

@Xaessya I'd love that also but I don't think we'll ever get something like that sadly and stuff like console exclusive games means Nintendo are free to charge what they wish and people would have no other option.

@PotatoTheG I buy a majority of my PS4 games digitally because Sony are great with sales I wish Nintendo would drop prices more often.

Just negative after negative recently with Ninty.. Wtf are they playing at

@BJQ1972
Yep, that's exactly it. I remember some years ago how Nintendo said that they worked with retail "partners" to set the digital prices.

Physical only is the clever route

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Full price at the eShop isn't a bad thing in principle, but 70€ for Zelda?!
I hope that this price isn't the standard for Switch games...

Zelda is from 59 to 70 euros in my local stores, but I got it for about 53 euros from Amazon France.

But of course, Nintendo has yet to say a thing about its download store bar 3rd parties confirming what'll be up on launch....

If I buy Switch for my kids, do I have to buy eShop games for each of our consoles separately.

I will go physical for Switch games, because the Switch console itself is no longer pocket-size. For my New 3DS xl, it was, so I went download only.

@Moon You will most likely be able to use eShop codes purchased from different territories, but I suspect that if you bought a US code then you will have to use it on the US eShop, even if your machine was bought from the UK for example.

You can create multiple user accounts with different country settings, so you can access the eShops from separate regions.

@PotatoTheG Xbox Live has some pretty good sales every now and then, not as many games go on sale as the PSN but the prices tend to be better. The Devil May Cry HD Collection for Xbox 360 was on sale for $4 earlier in the week, for example.

@Varoennauraa That's something to be confirmed. They have yet to specify how user accounts work.

If digital purchases are tied to a user account rather than the system, then you might be able to use a single account on multiple devices.

Fingers crossed! But I wouldn't bet on it. ;p

Part of the reason I don't buy first-party Nintendo games digitally is they almost never go on sale, and if they do, it's usually just $5 or $10 less than the normal price. I can usually find better prices on eBay or local stores.

I seem to remember Iwata said that the reason digital prices are close to physical prices is because they believe a digital copy of a game is as valuable as a physical copy, which I interpreted as PR fluff.

@Varoennauraa knowing nintendo, yeah, probably

Cartridges all the way for me, for this very reason. Until it becomes standard practice for the download versions to be cheaper I will not even contemplate going all digital

@Spyke totally true. Digital is only good for virtual console. My boxed Mario kart64 cost nearly 4 times the value of that eshop virtual console.

This needs to be the generation where Nintendo realises digital is the future for most and it needs to price things accordingly - and for God's sake, make sales better!

"Steep" Gold Edition is £62.99 on the PSN Store, but it was recently on sale for £29.99. Nintendo would never do such a sale with such a new game - they can barely bring themselves to take 20% off 30 year old games...

EDIT: Also, Nintendo still have not told us anything about the eShop on the Switch. Is it shared between the Wii U and 3DS? Are our funds shared? Are purchases locked to that one console? Do we need to do a "system transfer" if we need a new Switch? 2 weeks to go...

@UK-Nintendo
That's beautiful

@The__Goomba

If its ever gonna be a digital only monopoly - then Im out

@Vegaphil

in regard to switch storage option I dont really see a reason for optional downloads at all. Of course I am a fan of physical but given the microsd prices the reason for digital just faded away entirely

@Barnacle lol. Thanks
If they don't bring Mario kart 9. Switch will be the only console I don't buy mario kart. Let's hope they do

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@UK-Nintendo You make me ashamed of my N64 boxes... (treated them equally to the GB ones, but they didn't last more than a year without problems)

@Varoennauraa Depends on what they decided to do: if their new eshop client account has the ability to be activated on several devices, then no. (I doubt it though)

What idiot would even by a download code?
You have no item to sell on if you complete or don't like?
You have the possibility that it can't be transferred to future systems. (Possibly what will happen with Wii u titles on switch)
You pay more for the Ecode over a boxed edition?

@UK-Nintendo
Wow, all complete Mario Kart series.
But are you sure not interested to play some 3rd party games like Fantasy Life 3DS, Chocobo Dungeon Wii, Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility Wii, Go Vacation Wii, Lego City Undercover Wii U, Final Fantasy III NDS, The Sims Bustin' Out Gamecube, etc ?
Just curious...

My choice is just only one...
Cartridge ! Cartridge ! Cartridge !

I'll be going physical for all major first part titles. I'll be downloading games like Tetris. I love to collect games but I also love the idea of booting up my switch and having several games on the system without switching or carrying a bunch of cartridges.

@onex Ok, i just have to ask: What part of "Digital downloads cost more than a physical copy" is good news?

Cardridges all the time for me. Gives me the oldskool vibe. I only want downloads for simple eshop games. Or the 2D Streetfighter HD

For me it will be cartridges...I prefer the freedom to sell them and buy used ones. There's nothing wrong with having Tetris or vc faves on it but a lot of downloaded games will not survive past the Wii U and 3DS.

@Rumncoke25 nobody had said anything, I saw the opportunity I took it lol

@UK-Nintendo
Great collection and well looked after. I take it you have a big retro collection

@NintySnesMan not big but I do love the old mega drive. Sega was king when I was growing up. Sega Saturn was my arcade heaven

@Rei thanks. There not that good. The box protectors make them shine

@UK-Nintendo
Same here. I remember as a kid putting 10 pence in the Phoenix arcade cabinet it was always next to packman whatever arcade u went in. I had Atari but when NES and then Mastersystem came out they were mind blowing. The console war era was ace the golden age of video games SNES VS MEGADRIVE I bought both. Then I bought Saturn which I still have and still play on it. Tbh I have had all consoles and handheld except virtual boy. I still have a retro machine called Philips G7000 video pack that came out to rival Atari 2600

Digital. It's a lot more convenient and I'll love having a massive library of games accessible anytime anywhere on my Switch like my 3DS.

@Farmboy74 plenty of games on PSN are between £45 -£50 on day of release.

Nintendo charging £60 is outrageous. They really don't understand how selling digital games works. People are not gonna pay £60 for games.

Also at least Sony and MS have great sales on digital games. Nintendo sales are a joke.

@NintySnesMan true. I bought both too lol but everyone I knew growing up had sega master system, mega drive. The games library to this day in my opinion and everyone won't agree was classy.
Nintendo is great until Super Nintendo. First party games are the only ones worth buying.
PlayStation has now taken over the world and third party devs love them and I can't blame them either.

@Kobashi100
Just checked PSN store and I'd say for most big name games your looking at between £50 - £55.
Granted Sony hold plenty of insane sales which encourage you to buy digitally, hell even I have brought games digitally but not at Sony's or Nintendo's high prices. I feel that digital games that are also available physically should be around £30 as you've not had to upload the game to disc or cartridge, pack it and then distribute it to the stores.
I do agree that £60 for Nintendo Switch games digitally are outrageous, but as always if enough people buy them at that price then they will never lower the prices.

Ahhh, UK pricing. US pricing never has to deal with this as it's the standard MSRP, both physical and digital.

@IceClimbers
Ya, these poor Europeans are living in crazy town. Here in the US, it's all standard. $60 for a physical game, $60 for a retail game. PS4, Wii U, X1... doesn't matter. All the same. And $60 US is a lot less than £60. Equivalent price should be £48

And here in the US, we have BestBuy GCU 2-year memberships for just $30, with 20% off all new games the entire 2 years. That means $60 games become $47.99 (the equivalent of £38.44)

So, ya. Move to America people. Land of the cheap and home of the games. Where we never pay more than the equivalent of £38.44 for a $60 game. And $40 games? Never pay more than the equivalent of £25.63

No one seems to have noticed the real news here - the price of the physical version has increased from £48 to £49.99!

@Switch81tch Right?! It feels so at home for me!

Many people will be sticking to physical copies because of nostalgia.
I will - after my digital-heavy experience on 3DS - stick to cartidges because going digital flat out won't make any sense.

And then they are questioning why digital sales sucks. We're not getting anything physical it should be at least 10 euro cheaper than the boxed version! Period! No sale for digital!

Has anyone looked at the Xbox store? New releases cost up to €99 for some games. On the PSN loads of games are at €70.

Totally purposeful but worrying that Nintendo have to use the tactic at all. They price e-shop games at the 'top' price to encourage a full 'sell through' of the physical catridges they have produced (so they lose no money on sell backs).Once they have enough physical stock sold to counter any further production runs, they can then have eshop sales on those titles.
This is worrying because that might suggest Nintendo has over produced cartridges for certain titles, thus plonking a ridiculous eshop price to try to make sure retailers do Not sell stock back to them.
Are Nintendo in trouble already an have made a big production boo boo? Like THQ did...

You would be insane to take those downloads, just go for the cards!

Nintendo simply needs people to buy the cartridges, they are expensive to produce in comparison to discs and i bet they got a special deal at the factory if they ordered a couple of million (Zelda) as opposed to a shoter run of 300,000 (Fire Emblem).
So the instant reaction of thats insane, is the exact reaction they need so you sensibly buy the carts.

@UK-Nintendo no dr mario?

Look on the PSN store (which is great) and you can pay the absurd prices of £69.99, or even £74.99 for such classics as any deluxe NBA/NHL/NFL game, Valentino Rossi etc. when new.

The major difference is that if you look back 2 weeks later those titles will be £14.99 for a few days. Nintendo need to get to grips with proper eShop offers and sales, or their online department will never thrive on "go on then" whims like the PSN does.

It's also great for gamers, to be excited about having a look, seeing if there's a tempting game going cheap, and thus trying something new. Surely a win-win. I will never download a game at full RRP, why would you bother?

I'll be sticking with the Disc copy.

@MysticX Did I say it was good news? Read again. Check almost any other news article on here, and you'll see the same usual suspects blathering on about how much they think everything sucks. So tiring. I want to engage with the community, but so many here are so drab.

I'm going digital and physical.
Collect physical, use digital.

As others have said the psn store is just as bad so it isn't a unique Nintendo issue.

Personally I've always had the opinion that a digital copy should be considerably cheaper than a physical copy otherwise what's the incentive to download it??

If you have a physical copy, when you've finished with it or perhaps even if you don't like the game you can potentially sell it on to someone else or trade it in and make a little bit of money back on it.

With a digital copy once you've paid for it and downloaded it there's no resale value whatsoever, if you don't like the game.... Tough your stuck with it....... For that reason alone I'll never buy a digital game unless it was cheaper than a physical copy and even then I'd have to be 100% sure it was a timeless game that I'd never consider getting rid of

As an example if I download fifa 17, as soon as fifa 18 comes out its useless to me and I'd never play it again

Typical. Not facing stock issues and not having one's game tied to one finite physical medium is more of a perk than some reckon, and the industry has no qualms about making extra profit from it. Would you have any if you were them? XD

Its better, it makes it more attractive to go physicall with the games.

No idea why people go digital with Nintendo games when they generally have a fairly high resale/trade-in value for years after release.

@Masurao The Only thing is that is not a good analogy. As you would need to have an Apple seller and an orchard owner.
Nintendo is the orchard owner and they make more money if you buy the apples off them for the same price as the apple seller but with out the apple seller taking a cut.
This would mean the orchard makes more money so they would want to encourage you to buy from them so make a reduction in price but still make more profit.

This also does not take into account that if you buy digital you can not trade in meaning Nintendo should be able to sell more games. They really should be making the digital market place the best way to buy there games, and it is currently the worst.

For big games I'm sticking to carts, the continued silliness re download pricing is baffling.

@JH64 Nintendo has a unique problem - they need retail partners to sell their systems. That means competing with retail prices isn't really in their interest. If they drive retail out of the market by undercutting or price-matching with download convenience, then perhaps retail will pass on their systems, and their install base suffers. At launch more than ever, particularly after many retailers ate the costs on the Wii-U (units Nintendo made a profit on as they were already sold to retailers), Nintendo needs to not step on toes here. The costs of selling a digital game are cheaper, but not if that means losing retail partners' shelf space permanently before Mariokart and Mario Odyssey even have a chance.

Downloads are for Virtual Console games, indie and shovelware.
IMO it would be silly to download a AAA title.

Any game I spend over £35 MUST be physical. It then belongs to me and I can do whatever I want with it.
I can lend it to relatives, sell it, etc.

This policy extends to music, films and ebooks where I set various maximum prices. Give me something tangible.

@Priceless_Spork
It's not even a matter of price; digital games are so comfortable, especially on a handheld. But with digital delivery being so crippled with such a disadvantageous and unfavourable game-size-to-storage-space ratio, I think the only games I'll download will be the download-only, smaller eShop games.
And the unmissable, main games, like Super Mario Maker Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Sm4sh Switch/Sma5h Bros and Super Mario Odyssey.

Such a great start to the Switch, Ninty really wants to succeed with this one. Can't wait!

Lol mean while in North America it's. The same here 59.99 eShop and 59.99 at retail.

@UK-Nintendo fam why you putting Super Circuit 2nd? It was released after MK64 tsk tsk.

@Baker1000 true. Good spot👀

Good luck with that, Nintendo.

If a game can be had physically, I'll get it physically. Digital pricing on physical games can often be a rip off. In the case of Fast Racing NEO and the Two Steamworld games, I got them when they were only available as eShop purchases, but double dipped to get the physical release. It's rather annoying that I can't get the boxed releases of Runbow, Shantae, and Giana Sisters as they won't work on a PAL system, as those are games I'd really love to add in a useful manner to my collection.

And on the matter of Gold My Nintendo Coins, maybe they will finally improve the offerings come the release of the Switch. That's a pretty big maybe though.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE - Right on cue!

I scrolled down specifically wanting to see how you would blame Nintendo and be angry about this, and sure enough... You have trolled the topic to great success!

What a total joke that digital copies are the same price as physical, nevermnind more expensive. How can things seriously be this messed up with game pricing in 2017.

@The__Goomba It's absurd considering how much you lose going digital: No physical box, disk or instruction manual that might at least justify the cost, no real ownership; can't resell; can't give to friends; game can be changed and morphed at the whim of the content owners, etc.

@impurekind I'll always choose physical over digital when given the choice hopefully we have that choice for a long time yet.

I only buy Nindie titles and eShop only things digitally, BUT I will buy Nintendo 1st party titles if the sale is good and it's a game I really know I will play and keep. Also, because I live in Iceland [and Nintendo basically doesn't exist here], it is often my only option to buy digital - because buying physical games here is extortionate - for example, ZombieU is still 11.000kr [£80].

For the Switch, I have ordered Zelda and 1, 2 Switch and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in physical form, but will pick up Snipperclips, World of Goo and I Am Setsuna digitally.

The chief advantages of retail games are exchanges and trades.
If you pay top whack for a download game that turns out to be lame sauce then you are never going to get a return.
A friend of mine collects rare JRPGs and sells them on when the price is right. He made over £350 towards a Switch last month.

It'd be nice if they at least gave some sort of guarantee that a digital purchase would stay in your "Nintendo Account" library and be playable on future platforms to offset the loss of being able to resell or trade-in a physical copy.

PSN's prices to tend drop as the retail versions drop. They never cost more at launch, that's for damn sure. Also, their sales aren't like "10% off" of like $5 like the eShop. Today there's a "play anime" sale and things are like 75% off.

eShop needs to get. it. together.

this is something sony do aswell. its not cool, downloads should be a little cheaper. despite that I do find myself downloading most games now days.

Some people use the option of trading in games to support their decision to buy physical, but I never trade in games, so the option is irrelevant to me... it just comes down to price... as long as they keep their prices at the RRP, I will only buy digital if it's digital only, or on sale for less that the physical price.
Personally, I'm hoping the discounts that are supposed to come with the subscription service might help with this.

"We think that digital games have the same value as retail" - or something like that, was their reasoning back then.
Yea, digital software need no physical storage, no printing, no boxing, no shipping, no handling. All of these - gone. Meaning they save a lot of moolah if they keep the prices like that.

I mean, I don't understand. It's a digital game. They should make them more affordable for everyone. They should tempt you to buy these games - even if you may loose the saves or the whole game file someday.

That Nintendo Selects they have in their eShop? I can buy boxed new copies cheaper than that, thank you. And my saves and data will last longer in a card than on the system.
And I have the possibility to sell the games, if an emergency happen. Sometimes even with benefits, as some retails gain more value after some time.

I'm thinking. Maybe it's because N's stuff is so rare in some countries (like Holy Grail rare). The only way to get the games - if you don't know how to internet - is by going full digital.
And if that's your only option to get their games - why not overprice them a bit? I mean that part of the customre base doesn't have a choice, right?

Nintendo deserve to go bust.