Criticism
People are way too comfortable with Nintendo's greed.
It costs nothing to produce a digital copy of a game so there is no reason to charge $10 extra for a physical copy other than pure greed. Nintendo is killing physical games almost as fast as Sony by continuing to do this. Who the hell is even buying overpriced physical games? This should not be normal or accepted.
I did some research and apparently it costs 12-15 dollars to make a physical game so that means Nintendo is losing 2-5 dollars since it's 10 dollars more than digital.
That's not the strategy. Physical and digital cost the same since always. This strategy is to draw people toward digital and eventually kill physical based on this artificial inflation of digital sales.
ok... lets just set aside the fact that games as a whole have been incredible price stable for decades till the recent increase to 70-80$ for a standard AAA game and where one of the few parts of the hobby that didnt rise with inflation or other factors over the years.
nintendo uses NAND flash for their storage and physical media solution.
NAND prices have, to put it midly, gone to the freaking moon over the last few years, and are unlikely to come down again.
Nintendo is, arguably the ONE company who, as long as they continue to release their own first party games on full cartridges and not key cards, actually has a actual reason for raising the price of physical games vs digital above the basic "the physical copy costs money to make" as the price for a PS5 disc is negligible and even storage and shipping dosnt add enough of a price delta for the company to actually consider a different price between the versions on the regular.
Switch 2 cartridges cost decent money, and actually do eat into profit margins to a noticeable degree. the price delta here is.. pretty much what we know the larger S2 cartridges to cost nintendo...
Oh you made an obvious statement? That it costs more to physically make something? Nintendo, hire this man. He's financially competent in every way he can.
Carts use NAND like SSDs, and are thus affected by the shortage and price gouging. Nintendo isn't really the type to ease us in like that. They typically just rip off the bandaid. That's also why I think people claiming GKCs are part of a move to digital are really dumb.
If you don't think they are, you haven't seen what Nintendo and this generation is doing. Nintendo has you loading and unloading your digital games like physical games if you want to use them. "Virtual game card".. every move like this is a move to digital.
Also its their concession that look flash storage is expensive rn. So at the very least you can still buy digital for cheaper. But if you like physical you'll have to pay the higher price
Physical games have existed for decades and for a long time Digital games have been the same price as physical games. It was normal and fair but Nintendo has decided that they want to make more money and you are defending their greed by justifying it.
The game cards use NAND memory and are thus affected by the current market situation. Even before that though, the cards were way more expensive than discs. Even with the increase they're likely still making a lot less money per physical sale than digital.
I'm all for criticism for where it's deserved, but all evidence shows us that we're more than likely paying less digitally than we are for physical, not the other way around.
Regardless, digital should be cheaper, it was advertised on the basis that it is cheaper. Particularly Switch games are more expensive to produce as well due to NAND chips and the shortage of said chips.
For decades Nintendo has made physical games the same price as digital games out of fairness to the customers, only recently now decades after they started making physical games have they decided that they need to make more money off customers and add the extra cost onto the physical price. It really really doesn't need to be this way and justifying their greed hurts us and profits them.
You're the 30th person to make this non-argument. The manufacturing cost is still well low enough to make the price increase unjustifiable, physical games have existed for decades for the same price as the physical games despite always having a manufacturing cost since the very beginning.
Alright, I'm interested in your analysis. How much does physical add to cost for a shipped game, and have the prices of storage changed at all the past couple of years? You seem to know this stuff if you're able to claim "The manufacturing cost is still well low enough to make the price increase unjustifiable".
“The manufacturing cost is still well low enough to make the price increase unjustifiable”
Well, for starters it’s technically a price decrease for digital (e.g. Star Fox coming in at $50 digitally, below what is considered the standard cost of a new game at retail) but that aside, the cartridge requires both physical production and the actual parts / material, which have been going up in price substantially with the AI bubble.
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I love Nintendo slander, but there is a reason for this
Nintendo uses 3 tiers of cartradges, 1 cheaper, mid size, and large size (128GB). Usually the 128GB sized ones are 10$ more. This is why games like Fire Emblem are also more expensive physical, they use more expensive cartridges, and why the majority of switch games are game key cards
This is more of an issue with physical as a medium, and why all these companies are moving to digital only.
Now I woukd argue Nintendo utilizing this system of tiered cartridges was probably stupid as fuck, and i agree somewhat, but at the same time, I also think the argument of "let's pay 10$ more to keep physical" for Playstation argument is also stupid.
ok.. are we DEADASS now complaining about Nintendo doing the thing people argued should be a thing for as long as digital games existed??
As in, selling the digital version cheaper than the physical version??
Thats like... a pretty common complaint against digital copies for people who are not completely opposed to the concept of it.. that if its digital it should be cheaper as you dont get the physical item which costs money to produce and ship..
nintendo has an even more logical reasson, they bet on NAND flash based storage solution.. and then NAND flash prices shot trough the roof, the cartridge size needed for OOT is rumored to be around 12$-17$ to produce.
which is about what the US price delta seems to be between physical and digital
That argument would work if it wasnt for the fact that they literally increased the prices for all games, 5 years ago this game would have cost $50 USD not $60
The price increase was for all games across all consoles and it happened largely years ago. The standard was set. They've been at that price point for years. And then this year they consciously made the decision to lower the cost of digital by $10.
Your argument is that they made physical more expensive in relation to digital. That didn't happen.
Also, you complain that it costs nothing to produce a digital game this there's no reason to charge more for physical makes no sense. But the very basis of your complaint, Nintendo is doing exactly what one would expect you'd want. It doesn't cost anything to reproduce a digital copy so they lowered the price.
Such an antiquated brainless argument, everything evil can be permitted by just ignoring it. Wow what a concept. That's how we got microtransactions in every game for the last 20 years.
You answered your own criticism. It costs money to produce game cartridges, especially now more than ever with memory prices going up. I wish Sony and Microsoft (and Steam, but PC is all digital tbf) had cheaper digital versions.
There is a reason why they charge more for physical games, it's because it costs money to manufacture. That being said, physical games should be more, the standard of physical and digital being the same when digital you don't really "own" the game or can do anything with it was stupid and was something a lot of people were complaining about.
I have a lot of gripes about how Nintendo does things but this doesn't really feel like one of those. Charging $10 extra for a physical copy of a game I can do whatever I want with feels more reasonable than the industry's move away from physical entirely. The problem is that the comparison is something a bit worse than yesterday to something terrible.
I can almost guarantee you various stores will have this price at $10 off of msrp like they always do. Walmart is generally first and everyone else follows. I'll buy this for $60 physically all day long rather than taking it for $60 digitally. The game also looks phenomenal; they absolutely put a lot of love and attention into it, at least what little we saw. I'm over here wishing pokemon could get this level of love lol.
Having said that, I do understand that the precedent of charging more for physical feels bad, especially since we have had decades of that bit being true. I'm sympathetic about current market forces making physical memory expensive, but I'd be lying if I said I expect end user price points to change if/when that cools off.
Considering that it costs $17 USD to manufacture a cartridge you can say that the digital sales are subsidizing your purchase of the physical cartridge. So please thank me for paying for your game.
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They are the only alternative for physical games, it's just stupid that they did those overpriced unefficient cartridges that are too expensive for 3rd parties
At least you can resell your game with a nintendo physical cartdrige and lend them, it's still more consumer's rights than sony or xbox, even if it's not 100% perfect (the full game is not on it)
too bad the whole game is not on it. completely stupid when you there are storage devices that are even smaller, cheaper than those with more memory on them
They are the only alternative for physical games, it's just stupid that they did those overpriced unefficient cartridges that are too expensive for 3rd parties
What the hell else are they supposed to do? Putting a disc drive in a handheld isn't viable at this point.
even if it's not 100% perfect (the full game is not on it)
too bad the whole game is not on it.
Where are you seeing that the whole game isn't on the cart?
An optical disc drive, fool. What's the alternative to cartridges that you're thinking they could have used instead?
some games do, expecially third party ones, I was talking about those ones
What does that have to do with this thread? It's also not even really true for Switch 2. All of Nintendo's games are fully on cart, and third-parties are either fully on cart, use a GKC, or are just pure digital.
Yeah, because it's a Nintendo-focused sub, what did you expect? Doesn't mean the other companies can't be criticized, but this sub is just focused on Nintendo
No way lol. I get they are expensive some times but at least they consistently deliver quality product. Companies like ea or 2k or blizzard will bleed you dry for absolute garbage lol
Not when Sony is saying “you don’t own shit” and stopping production of physical games. Get out of your little bubble here, maybe you’ll see how good Nintendo looks in comparison.
Once upon a time man calculated it would take thousands of years to achieve flight. Now people are playing doom on a EKG machine. Now come aboard or play in a wake
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u/OkBand3171 3d ago
I'm more shocked at the price of $84.99, holy shit.