Intro
I’M BACK. Sorry for the 2 and a half month hiatus, I was busy becoming a Vtuber.
Anyway buckle up chucklefucks we’re talking about the hot topic, video game prices in (somewhat) general. Nintendo is just the next publisher to blow the lid off the supposed “cap” of ~70$ AAA games. (What happened to 60$!?) The Nintendo switch 2 is going for $450 which is way more than its predecessor the Switch 1 at ~$300 so what gives? Nintendo hasn’t really been in the graphics race since the days of Nintendo Gamecube (or N64 depending on who you ask), so does Switch 2 make it so they’re back in the race? No. Instead we’re getting an amalgamation of features that the system can do, motion controls and using the controller as a mouse is now available. The controller now has a “C” button on it, which lets you access Nintendo’s gamechat, which lets you screenshare and chat with your friends online and with facecam, some games even use it for their gameplay like Mario Party, which does seem kinda neet. World Tour, a game that is packaged with the launch systems as a free demo, lets you learn and try out the systems many features, to educate you. You can system transfer your Switch 1 to your Switch 2 somewhat seamlessly, allowing you to access your data faster rather then shoving memory onto microSDs and having to do it the old fashioned way. (RIP Memory Cards) The coupe de grace (I cant figure out how to write the fancy symbols, so I apologize France.) is that Nintendo Switch games are going to retail at 80$. You can get Mario Kart World at 50 if you buy it with the system as a bonus but this is ridiculous. I understand that triple A games are not cheap these days but Nintendo is one of if not the most recognizable game maker and publisher on the face of this planet and you’re telling me a game is going to cost eighty? You’ve gotta be kidding me.
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A Quick Analysis
This price point is outside of “affordable” for a good amount of people, even gamers are hard pressed to drop 80 bucks on a game. So why 80? Inflation is bad but is it bad enough to warrant an extra $20 on games we buy? Is Nintendo just abandoning its less well off consumers and just prioritizing on marketing towards people with money? I’d say its not entirely out of the realm of possibility HOWEVER is would be an economically wild decision, this is a beloved brand. Japan has the switch retailing their own version of the switch (Which notably does not have the rest of the languages on it) for $340, games are about the same price more or less. Are the tariffs and economic uncertainty THAT bad? I believe that the bottom line is Nintendo is trying to increase their margin to try and ride of the tumultuous days that the world is looking like it is in for, the ongoing wars and loss in trust from trade partners is very scary but this decision has come back to bite them with vengeance. During their treehouse livestream, angry viewers spammed “DROP THE PRICE!” in chat over and over, the WHOLE stream. Nintendo has issued some statements but nothing that would soothe an angry clientele and some statements have just made things worse but none are worth discussing here.
Who is this for?
You could make the argument that all the Switch 2’s new features are to blame for this and I would respond, no one asked for these. I mean game chat that lets you share screen and video chat with your friends (Plus a camera)? Y’all heard of Discord? or Skype? or Zoom? or Microsoft Teams? That type of technology has been shoved into just about every (relevant) VOIP service the internet offers. From the demos shown so far, the chat looks rather laggy and the quality of the streams is somewhere in the 360p range. It really feels like an unneeded add-on that someone in the board room really felt passionate about but no one on the development, marketing, or finance side said “This is stupid and redundant in todays landscape.”. The motion controls aren’t new BUT WAIT now you can use your Nintendo switch controller….as a mouse! WHY? WHO IS BROWSING THE NET ON A SWITCH 2? The Nintendo Wii had this feature and was very good at it, it was a novel feature that allowed users to quickly and efficiently access the world wide web without booting up their PC….in the year 2006. Today people have Smart Phones, I can browse the web almost as efficiently as on a PC, this is not a needed feature anymore. The Wii very much took strides to fill potential voids in peoples information space, there was the news channel (which had a banger soundtrack by the way and what you’re listening to now!), the forecast channel, the everyone votes channel, the Nintendo channel, and even the helpful features like the Photo channel which let you edit photos…again in the year 2006, back then tiny me was amazed and wowed by at how easily the world could be brought to my room on one simple system it was awesome and why seemingly everyone had one and it was only $250 adjusting for inflation that’s still roughly $390 USD. The Switch 2 only boasts a few of these features, the money hasn’t gone into notable features nor significant power to improve visuals so what gives?
Conclusion
I’m actively wondering if Nintendo does not have the confidence to stand up and innovate as they once did or perhaps they are overconfident in their movements and this is a powerplay, given Xbox is no longer going to make consoles and it moving into more of a publisher role and Sony is moving a good chunk of its catalogue to PC or staggering their releases to PC to give PlayStation some extra exclusivity. Either way asking people to drop around $650 for a switch 2 and a couple games is…bad for the industry as a whole. We were laughing that Rockstar games was going to try to sell GTA 6 for $100 because the suits think people should be charged more because players were getting hundreds if not thousands of hours of entertainment from GTA 5. Now I think that future will come to pass and the only people who lose in the end are the consumers and fans who have nothing but passion and derive joy from their favorite IPs who may not be able to afford them anymore. The Death Spiral of triple A continues and the good developers and publishers in the industry are left in a harsher environment. On a less legal note, piracy for switch 2 games is about to be absolutely wild on the net, if people cant afford digital products they just steal them, how fast do y’all think someone’s going to jailbreak/install a homebrew channel on a Switch 2?
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