The Price of Nintendo Games

Mazel tov! Where are you going for the honeymoon? Somewhere exotic perhaps?

Honestly I think it's a loyalty and traditional thing more than any other factor. Nintendo's mostly G rated games appeals to the younger audiences and parents who introduce their children to games. For stuff like the Playstation and Xbox platforms, you've got stuff for older audiences with a bit of stronger content like FP shooters as well as stuff with more language, suggestive themes and violence. Not to say the Nintendo is free of that though; they make it much more subtle.

Could also point to the loyalty aspect that many of us who grew up playing Nintendo games have an affinity for them. I've found that even though people may piss and moan about the high prices of new games, it usually passes quickly especially if it's one that's anticipated.

Honestly though, I mainly get Nintendo stuff for Pokémon and maybe the SSB series. I've never really gotten into the others.

 

I never really knew that the games were all that much cheaper for other consoles. I just looked around though and it seems like a PS4 costs about the same amount as a Switch. As far as games go that I would probably play, I'd rather get a Switch for Nintendo games and then get a better computer to play literally everything else.

That being said, considering the consoles are more "mandatory" for Nintendo games than a lot of others, I'm not entirely sure why the games themselves need to be more expensive. I have heard on more than one occasion though that the president of Nintendo had to cut his own salary when their profit was lower than expected so that the salaries of other employees wouldn't need to be cut. Maybe they just need to charge that much in order to make a profit. Being generally more family/child oriented than other companies, it's possible that it's just harder to market their games. Their target audience, compared to other companies, isn't exactly one that can go out and buy games just whenever.

I have actually been considering getting a PS4 over a Switch lately because of the trailers I've seen for Sekiro. My only issue, and this is more of a personal thing for me, is that apparently there are some people who can't play games above a certain framerate because it causes motion sickness. I've never had that issue with Nintendo games, but other consoles do tend to do that occasionally and Sekiro looks like it would probably be one of those.

I went on a bit of a tangent there at the end, oops.

 

Nintendo's games have always cost more because of the cost of manufacturing cartridges, which is somewhat more than the cost of discs. It has nothing to do with the perceived quality of the titles or a willingness to pay the asking price...although these things are why the damn things drop in price so slowly compared to the rest of the video games on the market...or, if they are first-party titles, often increase in value.

People buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games, so they effectively hold a monopoly on prices there. Nintendo have always acted like they're an old-fashioned toy manufacturer rather than an electronics company, and toy manufacturers don't drop the prices of their toys that they make. It's disgusting, but it works for them because they have a (mostly deserved) reputation for high quality. Sony and Microsoft share a lot of third-party titles on their consoles, so lowering prices on their first-party exclusives after a time is a good way to make them more appealing to prospective buyers.

I think many developers could get away with not lowering the prices on their games so quickly, but it would depend solely on the review scores...unfortunately, other developers rely heavily on advertisements and reviews to promote their products. Developers with high-profile titles could probably afford to keep the prices high with the justification of improved quality...although not AS high because discs are cheaper to manufacture than cartridges. It'd also have to be a complete experience with no DLC or microtransactions, and major developers who could afford to make games this way often choose not to, because there is more money in live services...at least for the moment. I think they could follow Nintendo's strategy in theory, but I haven't seen the sales numbers over time so I couldn't say for sure.

I personally will buy Nintendo games as cheaply as possible, which is rarely more than £5 than I might otherwise pay, at least on the Switch. The quality of Nintendo's first-party titles has been diminishing dramatically over the years, especially in their flagship series such as Zelda and Pokémon. If they expect me to pay more, they need to start delivering quality experiences again, not rubbish like Ultra Moon and Breath of the Wild. I'm not willing to pay extra when they're not putting up the same kind of quality that they used to.