Nintendo is set to launch a new series of starter packs for some of the Switch's biggest games next month, giving fans the chance to grab a copy of each game alongside an additional strategy guide.
The games in question are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, and Super Mario Odyssey. Each pack is available for $59.99 (the manufacturer's suggested retail price for all three titles), essentially meaning that customers are getting the guide for free. Lovely stuff!
If you're just joining in the fun with a brand new Switch console, or if you're yet to try out any of these heavy hitters, these colourful strategy guides may be a nice way to get started. You can find each product below, but bear in mind that these are only available from the US.
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The starter packs are scheduled for release on 28th September, so any pre-orders made now will be delivered at that time.
Do you know anyone who might benefit from a strategy guide, or anyone who is just getting their hands on their very own Switch for the first time? Let us know if you'll be grabbing one of these with a comment below.
Comments 61
From a pure marketing point of view this is great, update the artwork and add a bit of extra stuff. But this is a tactic that would work only for Nintendo as their games keep their value in time
I feel bad for anybody who their box art covered by those massive, ugly-looking signs
Eh, this looks more like a tactic to preserve first-sale value for their evergreen sales strategies.
All these titles have been out for a while now and should be available to buy elsewhere for an affordable price. The guides are hardly essential, and were even things they flogged on My Nintendo for a measly 10 gold coins.
@vitelus
Agreed, this is a nice way of celebrating their top sellers, when we know they aren't going to slash the price. A lil' something-something for the people that have been on the fence.
Maybe these booklets are even quite nicely laid out, I'd be curious to flick through one.
@Abeedo
Seems to me these are actually cardboard sleeves going on the outside of the game box, but I could be wrong!
Future collector items.
@Abeedo Get over it. I'm pretty sure that's just the cardboard box for hiding a standard game case and the strategy guide.
These are cool , I approve.
Physical DLC bundle packs would be better like BotW + expansion pass, Splatoon 2 + Octo Expansion, etc.
I love the games but that Nintendo pricing strategy is still inexcusable. Just drop the price of games that were released over a year ago.
Charging 60 bucks for a launch game is greedy.
Now you're cheating with power!
Looks like the same guide that was in the explorers edition of Zelda..
@BigKing No it's not greeedy. They are AAA Nintendo games.
I'm sure I read somewhere that Nintendo's latest batch of cards includes the recent patches. Can anyone else verify that, because that's great if true!
How do you always manage to publish links that go nowhere?
@YANDMAN Have you tried turning you computer/device off then on again?
A nice way of maintaining value. It's funny how modern gamers think they're entitled to getting games cheap within months of release but Nintendo are doing well to keep out of the race to the bottom.
Meh, just another tactic to sell older games at full price. They can get away with it because there is nothing else.
Just give the kids saving up to play it a discount at this point.
@BigKing They only do it with games that still sell. Nintendo games that don't have a high appeal drop as quickly in price as others, e.g. Art Academy U, Star Fox Zero, Fling Smash, 1-2 Switch, Animal Crossing amiibo-Party, etc. ...
@vitelus right, I’m almost a little jealous of the special boxes.
@Bensei I agree but I also don’t really consider any of those to be mainstream titles.
@BigKing Na these games are Nintendo’s bread and butter. It’s those games that sell systems. They will eventually see a price drop and be on the shelf with the other Nintendo Selects.
What the heck makes it a "starter pack"? You're not getting just a demo. You're not getting multiple games as a sample of what Switch games are like. What else would be lacking for your "starter" game that would make it feel complete instead of just a starter? Especially since it even comes with strategy guide which are usually overpriced?
@Abeedo the regular game box is inside these special cardboard boxes. I actually wouldn’t mind them on my shelf.
@Prizm In a sense they are "starter" packs, well BotW and Splatoon 2 that is. If you want to experience everything the games have to offer you need to spend more money, for BotW you buy the expansion pass and for Splatoon 2 you buy a Nintendo Switch Online membership and the Octo Expansion.
Super Mario Odyssey is the odd one out though there's still a possibility paid DLC comes to that game.
@RupeeClock The ones you can get on my Nintendo is not the full guide. It's just one section.
@clvr my reply was based on a list of titles the other user listed, not the games in the article...
Would rather have seen the Base game get an price cut
I'd much rather have a "Nintendo Selects" line for the Switch, but that probably won't come to the system for at least another year or so.
@th3r3ds0x oh my bad, I read the wrong comment!
I’ll delete mine then, have a good day!
So... just to confirm, these are real, paper strategy guides? Not just some downloadable PDF file you get with a code?
I wonder what the real reasoning is behind these?
Do retailers get mad at Nintendo for keeping year old game boxes on the shelf?
Do older game skus get lost behind newer games?
Is Nintendo trying to pad it's holiday output by repackaging older games? Not that Mario Party, Pokémon and SSBU aren't enough but they've been putting out more ports and HD remasters of late.
As @Grumblevolcano said, I was checking to see if Splatoon 2 included the Octoling expansion. That's kind of new, but Zelda is 18 months old, AND they sold the Explorers pack last holiday for $60 which I believe included a map. This may be a downgrade from that bundle, so you are actually paying the same for less stuff. Splatoon 2 already had a starter bundle with stickers, so you are paying the same for less there as well.
And if Nintendo wanted a map in SMO it should have been there day 1, not year 1.
I'm glad so many people are happy about this but I can't get past my cynicism. 😛
@clvr no worries
I am a sucker for these even when I already own the game. I sell my copy and go out and buy these. I have the Zelda and Splatoon 2 versions already so the Super Mario Odyssey version is a must for me. I'd like to see Arms get a similar re-release with a guide. I didn't play that yet but would be nice for Nintendo to support that game again. Which games you would like to see get this treatment?
Oh, and these will be nice collectibles in the future as they are all the same size and look great on the shelf.
I rather have DLC codes included or maybe in the cart.
I would buy an octopath traveler one in a heartbeat if it came with a guide!
Cool. I actually have been wanting to double dip on BotW (I have it on WiiU)
@th3r3ds0x Well, that was the point of my reply.
People complain about Nintendo not doing the downwards spiral in terms of race to the lowest price, but that's really because their products are of a quality and that the customer keeps paying the price. I saw Local stores even asking 60€ for a new copy of Pokémon White 2 (inlcuding the sticker that tells customers that online features have been abandoned by now).
If Mario games ever declined in quality like e.g. the Sonic games I bet they would face the same fate. It's an easy offer versus demand calculation.
Let's be honest, the pack-ins are nothing special. I picked up the Zelda Explorer pack last November. It came with a map and book. The map was nothing special. I looked at it once. The book is cool, but I would think it would make more sense to include the DLC at this point.
@Bensei 👍🏻
Didnt they already do this with BOTW last winter?
Splatoon strategy guide? What?
@BigKing I'd love to get games cheaper, who wouldn't, but these games are worth it, people are gonna get their moneys worth.
What we need is the BotW GotY Edition!
@Heavyarms55 Yep...
@Agramonte No point in dropping the price when the games still sell. I recall Breath of the Wild actually sold more between Jan and March this year than Super Mario Odyssey did.
It probably won't see a price cut until it joins the Player Choice range towards the end of the Switch's lifespan.
@Dr_Lugae Easy to find for $44 right now in the States. They propping up the price with this, If left alone it be 39.99 in a few. Nintendo just price fixes their stuff.
Also , not like the Switch has a flood of Quality open world games. ZBOTW is basically it.
This is pretty cool. Hard to imagine why anyone would whine about a reprint with a free strategy guide. But then again, this is the internet.
@Agramonte having not played it on other platforms, I really enjoyed Skyrim.
This is the second time they'll have done this for breath of the wild. Seriously, I just want to buy a physical bundle with all the DLC for mario and zelda please. Give me that and I'll double dip on zelda, and I still haven't bought mario for that very reason since I'm not a very good 3D mario player and I want a little more value with a GOTY version.
@baller478 Yeah, Target and BestBuy are matching the price also.
Hopefully Nintendo wont stop selling the cheaper plain version of ZBOTW and Mario to retail. Ubisoft is always great with prices - they give their fans a discount on their top games after a few months.
@Abeedo I've already got the Zelda and Splatoon ones, which I thought were old news. The boxes are carboard, but the actual cases have exclusive box art on the back of it
@HobbitGamer obviously.
Wasn't the splatoon one already released? What's the difference between this new one? (no stickers?)
@MartyFlanMJFan that doesn't mean Nintendo isn't greedy. You don't need to defend the pricing policy just because you like the games. It's the same with apple hardware, we all know it's overpriced.
On other platforms you can get older triple A titles for less than $10 on sale. On the Switch people are happy if they can buy old Wii U ports for $45.
That's just greedy. Partially because there is barely third party support.
@RupeeClock you realize the ones on My Nintendo were only partial guides and these are the full ones right?
I wish mine came with one for collectible reasons.
"meaning that customers are getting the guide for free."
As a general rule i think that, if you pay for it, it is not free.
@Medic_alert
Great point. They probably complain about the rise of DLC, micro transactions and loot boxes too. Yet the initial sale being devalued as a source of revenue leads to publishers looking elsewhere for revenue (yes some would probably have gone down that road anyway but it’s certainly encouraged by people literally demanding more in terms of development cost in return for paying less). You can see it on this thread. People talking about hugely expensive AAA games being discounted to £10 within weeks as if that’s a good, healthy thing.
@Medic_alert Nop, "Price fixing" is by definition setting a price that is irrelevant to its demand or supply. You never "price fix" an item that is in high demand as you want it to go above the MSRP for a bigger profit.
The biggest example of this is the eShop. The idea that ColorSplash on the WiiU is 59.99 because of "demand" is laughable. It is what happens when publishers have full control of prices.
Funny how Zelda, Mario and Splatoon 2 $44 regular edition have all dried up from Amazon - the same month the new 59.99 "Packs" show up for pre-order 🤔
@Medic_alert It is called "competition" and a "free market"
Most publishers do not live in the Nintendo LaLa land where you selling the only new "AAA open world game" for 16 months
What exactly you think Ubisoft going to do with AC if RD2 sucks the air out of the room "within weeks" of their launch. Or Activision to keep momentum VS BF5 4 weeks after they go on sale. You think GOW can compete at full price with TR or Ninokuni2 with DQXI... They cant. They play the "price" card.
Microtransactions would not exist if there wasn't a "demand" for them. We all saw this coming when people payed 2.50 for horse armor - That was 11 years ago.
Would be nice if they sold the strategy guide on its own for like half that price.
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