It sounds pretty impressive on its own thatMario Kart 8 Deluxehas sold nearly 70 million copies. But when you remember that virtually every single one of those copies sold for full price, it’s not just impressive, it’s practically unbelievable.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe released eight years ago this month, while the original Mario Kart 8 will celebrate its 11th birthday in May. All these years later, on the cusp ofa new Nintendo consolerelease, with a brand new Mario Kart announced to go with it, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe still costs $60. Nintendo will simply never reduce the price of its best-selling games.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that while everyone has been getting so worked up over the price of the Switch 2. $450 is a lot compared to $350 you’d pay for a Switch OLED, but it’s pretty much in line with the PS5 and Xbox Series X at $400, and way cheaper than a PS5 Pro. $80 forMario Kart Worldand $70 forDonkey Kong Bananzais also pretty shocking, but we’ve had $70 games for half a decade now, and deluxe editions of new games are routinely priced at $100 or more.
I’m not making excuses for Nintendo here, but the intensity of the backlash it’s getting right now is interesting, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that an $80 Mario Kart is still going to be $80 a decade from now, and there’s just no way to get around it.
The Price Is The Price
I understand Nintendo’s strategy, even if, as a customer, I resent it. Through consistency, Nintendo has trained players to buy all of its games at full price right away rather than waiting for a sale. If you knowSuper Mario Odysseyis going to be $60 no matter what, there’s no point in waiting to buy it. Nintendo probably sells more gamesbecausethey never go on sale.
Consider how different Ubisoft’s strategy is. It was one of the first publishers to price new games at $70 back in 2020, but we all know that if you just give it a few months, you’ll be able to snagthe most recent Assassin’s CreedorFar Cryfor half off, maybe even less. Ubisoft fans are conditioned to wait for a discount rather than buy new games for full price because Ubisoft sales are inevitable.
Nintendo thinks discounting games devalues them, and when you look at Ubisoft, it’s easy to understand why. I would never pay $70 for an Assassin’s Creed game because to me, those are $30 games that I always buy around Christmas time. Is Super Mario Party Jamboree a better game than Star Wars Outlaws? I don’t know, but they came out around the same time last year and Outlaws is already marked down to $33, so it can’t be that good.
Please Sir, Spare A Coupon Code For A Weary Gamer
The best you’re ever going to get from Nintendo is one of those2-for-$100 vouchers, but given the price hike for Switch 2 games, I wouldn’t expect to see a deal like that again. Maybe if you’reextremelylucky, you’ll find the occasional $10 discount on some of Nintendo’s B-tier titles like Super Mario Maker 2 or Yoshi’s Crafted World, but even those deals are few and far between. I waited two years for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 to go down to $40 before I bought it, and guess what? It never happened. You’ll find that game on the eShop for $60 today, nearly six years after its initial launch and middling reviews.
Nintendo doesn’t have to stick to this strategy just because that’s what it’s always done. The Switch 2 is an opportunity for growth and, dare I say it? A little bit of customer appreciation? The extreme backlash to the price of the new console makes me wonder if the Switch 2 is going to be as successful as Nintendo expects it to be -it certainly won’t be as successful as the original Switchanyway.
Maybe Nintendo will find itself in a position where sales and discounts are warranted, but probably not. If1-2 Switch is still $50, I don’t have a lot of faith in Nintendo’s ability to read the room.
