Nintendo on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom $70 Price: Game Has a Deeply Immersive Experience - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 13 March 2023 / 8,101 Views
Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser in an interview with the Associated Press was asked about the $70 price tag for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and he thinks fans will find the game is an "incredibly full, deeply immersive experience."
"We look at what the game has to offer," said Bowser. "I think fans will find this is an incredibly full, deeply immersive experience. The price point reflects the type of experience that fans can expect when it comes to playing this particular game."
Bowser added the price point isn't something they will have on all their titles, but it will vary depending on the game.
"This isn’t a price point that we’ll necessarily have on all our titles. It’s actually a fairly common pricing model either here or in Europe or other parts of the world, where the pricing may vary depending on the game itself."
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will launch for the Nintendo Switch on May 12.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Translation: "The market has spoken. $70 has been accepted as the standard price for AAA games. We're not going to leave money on the table and sell for less than we know we can get without substantial pushback. So, you can expect to see $70 price tags on all of our big games moving forward."
Congratulations: You just passed your test about capitalism and inflation! GOOD FOR YOU, have a cookie.
Really basic shit, no idea how anyone can be so selfish and entitled enough to think this isn't a normal progression of the economy. Bread don't cost 25c anymore, and game prices by all measures can and will go up with time. Same as movie tickets. Same as literally everything else that isn't Arizona Iced Tea.
No surprises here. They are following the market. People defended the price hikes believing the companies needed to do it, meanwhile at the same time, these companies are breaking record profits. I wonder why.
It's eventually going to reach a fine point in the future where gaming is going to be that kind of hobby for the rich, whilst the middle and lower classes will have to find some other medium instead, but the ppl of the current time frame won't care, as long as they can afford and get their fill.
Yeah its only going to go up. The industry needs to stand up to it rather than be acceptive on those pushing it to begin with. Its a snowball affect that will always happen.
Companies like Nintendo just arent going to sit their watching PS and Xbox rake in record profits for raising the price while they sit back being generous.
Its a corporate world out there, and it can be cruel
It only ever seems to stand up when the bigger group is bitten, and that group today are teens and those in their 20-30's, and the latter age are either raising a family of their own or busy with other activities/life to bother standing up.
Like I even check in on a few of the PC reddits (including the fuckEpic one), and I see ppl bitch about bad ports, but there is always a number of folks in there that buy regardless or make excuses (In the case of the FEGS reddit, they say they won't buy said games, then go and buy them anyway a year later, doing away with their stance).
The mobile gaming audience basically showed what can be gotten away with, and I feel like that's fully transitioned over to core gaming. It's sad that it has to be a Cyberpunk or Battlefront II scenario for people to really stand up.
Raising software price within the same generation is still a bad look IMO.
Yeah I was completely expecting for Nintendo to not jump the gun on raising the price of their games until their next-gen Switch. IIRC, Nintendo is doing with Tears of the Kingdom what they did with Majora's Mask being an asset flip from Ocarina of Time. It just makes it all the more confusing.
Then again, this is the longest we've waited for a new mainline Zelda game. So I'm hoping Nintendo has cooked up something of epic proportions to the point we forgot about the price point lol
Sony did that in Europe. And all third parties followed.
I really don´t mind a higher price for good games. At a price point of 70$ games have not increased in price at the same rate as the inflation level. Few other entertainments can compare to the hours one get per dollar spent.
Companies want to make the most money, consumers want to pay the least. Who's not trying to maximize earnings?
Lame excuse
- Companies breaking profit records.
- Companies selling more games than ever.
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Companies selling DLC/Microtransactions at a higher rate than ever before.
But of course, they will need to increase the price to make more moolah, because they are doing it "tough" in these financially uncertain times.
Still, the sad reality is... Myself, like most people who adored Breath of the Wild would buy this even if it was twice the price.
I feel like people saying it's financially tough are just fanboys "defending" these companies, not the company itself. Which obviously happens because of defense mechanism. People get laughed at for liking something that is not "cool" or "popular" which results in people defending what they like no matter what. People think they are singled out, "why is my favorite thing attacked when this other thing is doing the same thing! I have to attack the other stuff to make it fair!". It's called double standard
Tbf to those claims, you failed to mention inflation. In addition, scales of games increased and development costs increased.
I am confused why some people think this is new. Breath of the Wild is sold for 70€ in Europe since launch. Aaaaaand it is just one of two games with that price, the other being Smash Ultimate. RFA technically yes, but still no since it comes with the ring. So I think it is way too pessimistic to think that all big games will have that price tag when any Mario game including Mario Kart, both Metroids, Animal Crossing, any Pokémon game, both Splatoons, any Fire Emblem game and so on do not.
Sounds like in the future their really big mega selling AAA games might start being $70. Like Zelda, 3D Mario, MK, Smash, maybe AC.
Beyond those series I think all games will remain at $60. Though I suppose they might even do Metroid Prime 4 at $70 considering it has taken them so many years to make it and its a fairly niche audience so the game won't make gobs of money so $10 more per game will help out the profit on the game after so many years in development and they know Metroid fans have been waiting forever are gonna get the game whether it is $60 or $70.
Why do corps feel the need to fluff up their demand for a $10 increase?.
Like it's obv why the trend started and why you'd wanna join it and just jack the prices up, just say you want more money.
Either way I'm priced out I guess.
this game is worth $70.00
Nintendo are outright liars like the rest of the industry. ‘Immersion” has nothing to do with this price rise, and offering such an idiotic reason is truly pathetic. It’s amazing how much contempt these companies have for their fans with the amount of lies they tell us.
Using this generation’s justification for a price increase, when the Switch has 2 generations backwards hardware compared to modern consoles, is outrageous.
Greed is the reason. Exploitation too. But you’ll never hear this truth from these companies, because it proves how little they care for us.
He also said that they believe the Switch will sell millions of hardware in the coming years
Don't care. They're trying so hard to justify the $70. This shit would never happen under Iwata.
Well I think it looks like it'll be worth that price.
Realistically, this game is going to be great, but is the price increase justified?
- Minimal graphical upgrades
- No ray tracing
- Minimal voice acting
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No motion capture
Production wise, it does not imo.
Lets compare the Pair.
Collisto Protocol $70 - 8 hours of the best visusls you can find. One and done.
Zelda TOTK $70 - 100+ hours in an environment that is full of secrets to explore. Keep coming back to.
You know what game id rather spent $70 on.
Obviously TOTK, but that's exactly my point. Let's take your example, Callisto protocol cost $162 million to develop an 8 hour game, partly due to the points I mentioned above and CGI. Will TOTK use any of these features in the game? Has the development cost for the game exploded? I don't believe so.
Essentially, has TOTK added any new features that substantially increased the development cost of the game? From what I know so far, no, which is why the price increase is not justified.
There is more to making games than just visuals. For example, Zelda could cost just as much. It depends on development time. If Zelda took 6 years to make, it could cost just as much as a standard AAA game. The polish in Zelda is also up their with the best games.
Iv said this many times. Anyone can make a good looking game, not everyone can make great gameplay.
It shouldn't be on the customer to pay if a Dev team decides to blow up their budgets. Thats on the Devs. The idea is to make a game that sells to recoup. If you have to rely on Visuals while offering subpar gameplay, thats their issue in the end. We know Nintendo focuses their budget on where it counts.
Yeah I agree with this. I'm paying for a game and I want to have fun playing it, not to stare at some pretty visuals. Sure it would be nice if Nintendo games had the production values of, say, a Naughty Dog game or if they at least ran consistenly in 1080p, like PS4 games from 2013, but I think that's not a necessary thing for my money to be worth it.
My problem with this $70 price tag is that it will never go down since it's a Nintendo game, but that's another issue. It's also pretty bizarre to do this at the end of the generation and not just wait for the next console like Sony and Microsoft did, but I guess that's just Nintendo, and they're not exactly... normal.
I agree with you, but in saying all that,
Nintendo likes to hold their value, probably because that is literally Nintendo's only source of income. They don't have side businesses like Sony and MS do.
Also, I think it's unfair to judge Nintendo on the price increase since they are just following the industry which people were heavily defending.
The reason game prices went up was due to development costs of games going up. So, what's to say that some Nintendo games cost just as much as other AAA games?
Nintendo also said that the price increase will depend on the game. Metroid Prime Remaster was not sold anywhere near the price of a current gen game.
I think Zelda is justifiable if we are accepting $70 games like Callisto Protocol and Forspoken etc.
I don't think the $70 price is justifiable for these games either. I also don't like the $70 price tag but I rarely buy games at full price on non Nintendo platforms so it doesn't affect me at all.
I also get why Nintendo is doing it, and why they don't lower their prices at all but eh. It still sucks for me as a consumer.
Sure, so more of what made BOTW incredible, so why does TOTK justify a price increase?
Designed on Switch Hardware, not the WiiU like BOTW, also using a bigger cartridge for size etc.
I mean why are PS4 games sold on the PS5 with minimal adjustments charge full $70?
I didn't buy Calisto at $70 and I don't think I'm going to bother with it when it eventually drops under $20. Zelda is worth the $70 price by all means, it doesn't make it right to do it at the end of this generation. The time to raise the prices is when they release a new console. Zelda will never be sold for anywhere near $20, Calisto will be $20 within a year.
Zelda wont reduce price because it will sell bankbusters. The value Zelda offers is up there with the best in the industry. 100+ hours of gameplay vs 20 hours of a standard AAA means Zelda should infact cost more not less. Glad thats not the case but thats the reality.
