Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Gets A Quiet Re-Release On Switch, But With An Important Difference

Weird, but I get this move. It is also about reducing file sizes!

I wonder why they didn't offer this option in the first place?

Why not just lower the price of the complete edition to encourage more sales? The complete edition is only £35 elsewhere and regularly on sale. Why do third party games have to be so much more expensive on Switch?

@carlos82 because there is no competition. Nintendo has a monopoly on the whole handheld scene and can charge 3rd parties whatever they want

@Guitario There are also trade agreements but about the eShop not being able to undercut the RRP that stores sell for, otherwise stores will stop selling physical Switch games if they're getting constantly undercut.

Also, the Hearts of Stone DLC is the best part of the game anyway.

@carlos82

I guess it costed some money to hire a third party studio to port it for about a year, so I get why it releases on Switch at a higher price.

A fair price I think. Not sure how much the dlc costs, but they are worth it after the main campaign.

@Guitario

Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft all charges about 30% in royalties. Its an industry standard only Epic Store goes under.

Reminder: must get around to the Witcher 3 DLC at some point this year. Was ready to take a break after 100-odd hours last year - but it’s definitely a game I want to get back to.

They could at the very least make the upgrade to the full additional only cost the difference.

Witcher 3: GOTY Edition, which includes all the DLC, is £16.39 for PS4 or £14.97 for XBone (on Amazon).

@RasandeRose at release yes but why not lower it over time like on other platforms? Also you had the Resident Evil games do exactly the same thing and launch at virtually double the price of any other platform

@Krull Why would you only play the game during odd hours? Why not normal hours? And what actually are odd hours? Says who? I can only think 11-12 might be odd because it’s right before lunch, or maybe 3-4am because that’s prime sleeping time? Maybe 4-5 if you normally sleep in late...

Anyways, to the topic at hand; no interest from me and seems silly to do this now.

@Guitario whatever the reason its one of the worst aspects of Switch and in many ways makes it the most expensive console to own

@TimboSlice It means about, an estimate, in the context Krull was using it.

@carlos82

I agree on the Resident Evil ones, but Witcher 3 complete edition is still at 49.99 USD on Playstation store, so its really not that big of a difference, its 10 bucks more expansive on Switch

So if I won the complete edition, I don't have to purchase any of the DLC correct?

@TDRsuperstar2 Yes. You have it all.

@progx Thank you!

@TimboSlice This being the internet, I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not! But I’m amused nevertheless.

Let’s face it, any game that stretches beyond 100 hours already makes me feel odd... But TW3 was worth it.

@RasandeRose it also regularly goes on sale on the PS4 and can be purchased physically for about £15.
Switch pricing on third party games is ludicrous

There's no benefit to buying the vanilla version and not the all DLC one

Weird but I guess they really want to make up the loss from the Cyberpunk 2077 debacle. At the very least give us a Witcher 1 & 2 bundle and you would had made more money.

I love my complete cartridge. I need to go back and play it.

I purchased the PS4 Complete edition about 2 years ago - maybe 3 as the pandemic is messing w/ my timeframe memory - for $12, though it may have been on sale for $15 w/ the other $3 off being a PS+ discount.

I could see buying just the main game as it's 100 hours and some people may not feel the need to play any more after that. I played the first DLC about a month after finishing the base game and the 2nd DLC about a month after finishing the first. So it is a very hefty time investment.

$30 still seems a bit steep for a 5 year old game but it is way better than $60 for 7 year old SM3DW that you can buy for $20. 😂

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mario-3d-world-wii-u/

This is nice and all, but this is a game that deserves to be owned physically. Everything is on the cartridge!

Attempted this game twice but it just wasn't for me. Enjoyed parts of it but it just didn't click. Really enjoying the books and was a big fan of Netflix series.

@Mr-Fuggles777

So it does on Switch, it was on sale as late as in december. It's ridiculous how some people even today still argues that Nintendo games never goes on sale, they are on sale several times per year. And Switch uses cartridges, so can't really be compared to discs. PS4 doesn't really have physical releases, you can't play any game of the discs, they all have to be installed. So the extra price for cartridges comes with higher product value. At least as long as it's done like with Witcher 3 with the entire game on the cartridge.

@rjejr SM3DW includes TONS of new stuff that wasn´t in the old game, at least. And it costs the same as the other one. I´d understand that you complained about DK:TF, but this one... XD. I mean, it´s by far the best "deluxe edition" released so far.

i do not feel inclined to give cdpr a single cent much less $30

@RasandeRose it was on sale in Dec for £35 - which is extortionate for a digital version of a 6 year old game (its over a year old on Switch).
Keep defending these shady practices and you will keep getting ripped off. I hardly buy any games on switch because of the inflated prices - which is a shame as its a nice little handheld.

@RasandeRose it's £35 in the UK on both the PS store and Xbox store and thats without a sale but £49.99 on the eshop. Then you have the likes of Doom with a ridiculous price difference

@RasandeRose yes but Nintendo is free to charge more than all of the rest because of no handheld competition

Well, I guess it's a good thing that i've bought a physical copy at launch))

@Mr-Fuggles777 I don't know why people defend being ripped off so much, the sales on Switch are generally pretty poor and not just for their own games. I love the Switch but its easily the most expensive console I've ever owned when everything is factored in

@Mr-Fuggles777

You're complaining about 10usd price difference with the game released on PS4 all the way back in 2015, with the Switch-version being a 1 year development time version
And a game released 2015 still goes for 49.99 on Playstation Store, I can't say that is in any way any better than the 2019 port goes for 59.99 on Switch

Games are generally very cheap these days. Im not getting ripped off, Im fully informed what the game costs on every system and Im simple just not concerned that Im paying 10 bucks more for playing it on Switch. If I was desperate to save money I would just buy all my games on PC, but I think its worth the extra money getting them on Switch

@Justifier but they do charge more than the rest to license games on their system.
And there is something going on with what they charge for large cartridge sizes.
Because of this, cartridges do not contain the full game

@Guitario

But they don't do it. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft charges third parties the same 30%, just as Steam does too. ROM-chips are several 100% more expansive to manufacture than blu-rays, so ofc. Nintendo will take more for selling third-party publishers cartridges than Sony does selling them discs to put their games on...

@carlos82 agreed. It comes across as extremely greedy.
And then there is the issues of creating limited timed content creating FOMO and faulty joycons.

I've seen the full game of the year edition or whatever next to nothing on GOG, under 10 eur. So no, I'm not buying it on Switch

@carlos82 it's a strange trend, people will quickly moan about the big Developers like EA, Activision and Ubi whilst giving Nintendo a free pass or actively defending them for doing the same sort of things.

@RasandeRose I am pretty sure the older RE games on PS store cost about the same as on the Nintendo Eshop
(not including discounts).

It costs 20 dollars on the Eshop. Earlier it was 30.

I will probably purchase the base witcher 3. Haven't played it yet. But I am gonna wait for a sale tho.

@Mr-Fuggles777 If you are talking about 3rd party support for nintendo switch, EA and Activision do nothing at all while Ubisoft supports the switch to their best.

@anoyonmus I was referring to the shady business practices between the big Publishers rather than actice switch support.

mostly EA and Activision. Dk about ubisoft

@anoyonmus

Yeah, Resident Evil (Gamecube remake HD version) goes original price 19.99 both on eShop and PS Store. No idea where some people get the opinion its twice the price on the eShop. MB if you buy the triple pack on Playstation, it gets cheaper

@the_beaver Well if you want to pay $60 for Bowser's Fury I suppose it's worth it, but I bought SM3DW day 1 on Wii U, not sure they added that much to the base game.

I'm not surprised it's $60, Switch doesn't play discs so every Wii U to Switch cart gets to be $60, but Nintendo is selling SM3DW for $20 today - that link I posted is working right now in the US - so $60 seems a bit excessive for Bower's Fury DLC, this isn't a Demon Souls looking remaster.

But I'm not surprised in the least, how many ports of Wii U games to Switch that I already own is this now? Half a dozen maybe?

LOL at all these people crying about high prices of games on switch. It's really incredibly simple. If you want to play The Witcher (or any other game) handheld, you're going to purchase the Switch version. Otherwise you will purchase a different version. CLEARLY the market is bearing these prices with no problem. People are willing to pay a premium to be able to game on the go.

@contractcooker

Yep.
CD Project Red didn't just take the PS4 Witcher 3 and hit the publish button on the eShop. They actually hired a company to manually port the game over to fit the ARM-platform and the process took a year to do.

@carlos82

lol!
We bought N64 games for 69.99 back in the 90's, thats amount of money ment we spent what today would be around 100 dollars per game. Games for Switch, and other systems, are very cheap. 10 dollar difference here and there makes like no difference.

@RasandeRose The Resident Evil games launched at £30 on Switch and have since dropped to match elsewhere, although ironically its current sale price is more than double that on PSN.

As for N64, yes it was very expensive back then but I was in school so it was my parents problem 😛.

@Guitario the thing about Nintendo is the limited time amount has been around for a bit unannounced, try and find a copy of DOOM ‘16 or Bayonetta is you don’t believe me.

DOOM is $60 digital, Bayonetta is $70.

What I honestly don't get is why some people are soooo concerned about how others spend their money or where they play their games? Seriously, why does it bother or concern some of you so much? Not for nothing, but you must not have very much going on in your life if you're that concerned about what others are doing in theirs. You can all but guarantee that the same people clutching their pearls & questioning how others spend their money aren't willing to pay for these people's consoles or games.

So here's a novel idea; why not simply mind your business & let people live & do them unless you're willing to pay for their habits? Plus, if you're really that concerned about their financial well being, why not push them toward the PC? The games often debut cheaper there & the sales tend to be equally good or better as well.

Funny, the base game with the seperate dlcs downloaded is 10gb smaller than the complete edition? It is 21GB in Total vs 31 GB.

Goes on sale regularly for $40 so I’m not sure I’d bite on this for $30 but it’s always nice to have options!

This makes complete sense, they can now do regular discounts on the base game with 50% off, sell that for £15 and up sell the DLC at full price. That way it avoids the criticism of why such an old game is sold cheaper on other systems.

I will probably purchase this one. I was turned off by the 60 dollar price on the Complete Edition and the large file size.

I will just get the base game. No DLC yet

It would be nice if Nintendo brings that 64 gb game cartridge to fruition since they wanted to implement it since 2018. This not only would double the capacity from 32 but will allow bigger games to launch such as GTA 5. Of course there’s the Switch Tax to look at but it would be a nice option for developers to bring their games over given their size.

@TheBigN65 : Most publishers aren't even using the 32GB cartridges NOW, and most Switch games wouldn't require any more than 32GB simply because the assets are likely to need to be scaled down to render the software playable on the system in the first place.

I could probably name all of the 32GB cartridge releases with one hand:

• Dragon Quest Heroes I + II (Japan)
• Final Fantasy X + X-II (Japan/Asia)
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (International)
• Atelier Dusk Trilogy (Asia)
• SD Gundam G Generations (Japan/Asia)
• Attack on Titan 2: The Final Battle (International)

Okay... one hand and a finger, but it's still a pitiful amount considering that there are plenty of other similarly sized games where the publisher cheaped out and opted for a 16GB (or smaller) cartridge. There may be others (such as the Japan-exclusive Naruto triple pack?), but these are all that I am aware of at the moment.

Even Nintendo should have used a 32GB cartridge of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but instead they compressed the hell out of the audio to squeeze it down to a 16GB cartridge (and it consequently sounds quite poor, especially when comparing it to the Wii/Wii U instalments before it).

They also could have shipped Bayonetta I and II on a single 32GB cartridge, but opted to only include the second game on a 16GB cartridge and supply the first as a download code for the standard release. There was an extremely limited deluxe edition in Japan with both on separate cartridges.

@carlos82

Yeah, it probably have lower sales on PS4 compared to Switch by now, so they take off the price more to get more to buy it on that console too. I don't think its unethical by Capcom to try to make the most money they can on every system they've got their games on, they are in business to make money, not practice some kind of cross-plattform socialism.

@Silly_G yup, that’s true and true. If they want to stay relevant they need bigger storage on the game card and increase the Pro’s internal one to 128 gb. A portable version of GTA 5 that’s either an improved version of the ps3/360 or downgraded version of the ps4/xb1 would sell like crazy. It’s available for 3 generations of consoles so leaving out the Switch with its sales is not a smart business decision. Especially since LA Noire runs fine on it using the same RAGE engine. Rdr1 would be cool too.

@TheBigN65 : L.A. Noire looks and runs beautifully. It's a crying shame that they screwed over the physical release (which I reluctantly bought on clearance as I figured it was the cheapest that I would ever be able to get it new).

I see no reason why the Switch couldn't easily outclass the PS3/360 versions of GTA V. At this point, I think I would rather Rockstar hold out for the successor so that we can have something akin to the PS4/One versions. I'd be happy either way (just as long as we get a COMPLETE physical edition).

I don't think the internal storage of the Switch's successor necessarily needs more space as it will only artificially inflate the overall cost of each unit, and many people won't need more than the on-board memory if sticking with mostly physical releases. If it would cost Nintendo about the same to include 64GB or 128GB of space in the successor as it did to include 32GB in the Switch back in 2017, then sure, have at it, but I think it's better to be a little more conservative as those who need more space can instead spend accordingly.

@carlos82 I agree. Anytime a commenter on here mentions inflated prices, you get another bunch race in to defend Nintendo’s often inflated prices. I just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve bought pretty much every first party game and tons of third party and indies at inflated prices, but I’d still never actually defend Nintendo for charging the earth, and particularly their stingy sale discounts.

@Silly_G I disagree. Like many people these days, I only buy digital, and having just 32GB of memory is just ridiculous. Sure, I can buy extra memory, but with Switch 'only' using expensive SD cards, I shouldn’t have to be forced to spend even more cash within a couple months of the systems release. It’s not like the old days, when digital games were in the minority.

@the_beaver And the game even comes with a few physical extra's even, in its standard edition, which is also a nice bonus. And it is worth it reading a bit into the earlier lore, when Nintendo's first Witcher game, number 3, is your first. I bought it physically at half price, tried it, found it too blurry, one of the dogs chewed up my cartridge, I later bought it again physically at half price, and it's been patched up and runs beautifully in handheld now.

I’ve seen the complete edition on sale in the UK for £30-35 loads of times. I ended up picking it up physical for £35, hesitant about the port quality, but it has been one of the most engrossing games I’ve played (once I got used to the mechanics of the world). Such good value and a great port if you don’t have another system to buy it in cheaper.

Omg seeing people talk about GTA V on here fills me with so much hope. I’d even take Vice City and San Andreas (on the same cart please). I had Vice City on PS2. Bought the console just for it, didn’t have a memory card so just drove around enjoying myself until I traded the PS2 in for a stack of 2ndhand game cube games and a cheap DVD player. The gold ole days

I would actually buy the W3 for Switch, but it is not my cup of tea. However, when it comes to Skyrim, I bought this game on so many systems. I just love this game so much. Heck, even if a new console would come out, I would still buy it full price. Same goes for SM3DW or other Wii U games, that came to Switch no matter if I had them on Wii U already.

How can you redeem it for free if you have the physical version?
Even if the cart in and the game running, the eShop stills shows the game at full price.
I went as far as to add it to the shopping cart and check out, but before the confirmation it still shows full price...

@Silly_G
That's the full list so far. The Naruto triple pack is only 14.2GB in Japan, so over there it has no trouble fitting on a 16GB cart.

Limited Run Games announced a physical for the 18GB Observer, and the Gundam game is getting rereleased as a Platinum Edition with most/all of the DLC included on the cart, those seem likely to be the next 32GB carts.

@bluesun : Cheers for that. In terms of size, I must have been thinking about the international release of Naruto, which I believe just creeps over the 16GB mark, which would necessitate a 32GB cartridge (and would perhaps explain the lack of a physical release elsewhere).

I am really curious to see how LRG handles their release of Observer (pricing-wise).

@maruse that is the same question I have. That is how I understand it from the article