Analysts Explain Why Nintendo Has Increased the Cost of Games for Switch 2 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 08 April 2025 / 7,030 Views
Nintendo will be increasing the price of its new releases with its next-generation console, the Nintendo Switch 2. With even Mario Kart World costing more than the bigger releases on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S - $80 vs $70.
Analysts have now spoken with GamesIndustry explaining as to why Nintendo increased the price of its games.
Kantan Games founder Dr Serkan Toto stated, "Against the backdrop of global inflation, it's a good opportunity for Nintendo now to set the stage for the future and raise prices across the board.
"They look at the industry and see Sony charging $700 for a PS5 Pro or rumors about price hikes for blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto 6. Nintendo was also encouraged by the fact that they got away with the $70 they charged for Tears of the Kingdom in 2023.
"And even simpler, I think they raised software prices across all these regions because they think they can."
Toto believes that fans will adjust to the higher prices.
"Nintendo already priced in the protest and uproar by part of the fan base, betting this will all blow off and gamers will come to accept a new normal eventually. And I think they will be correct about this," he added.
Ampere Analysis' Piers Harding-Rolls thinks the increased prices could be due to inflation and the fact Nintendo does not do as much DLC and microtransactions compared to other developers.
"I think $80 for Mario Kart World reflects the recent inflation we’ve seen across all areas of consumer goods, is a benchmark for the new platform and is also because Nintendo is not aggressively pursuing in-game monetisation to offset rising costs," said Harding-Rolls.
"Then you have the tariff situation which will impact physical games more than digital. A price differential between the two mediums in this context is understandable."
He added, "Nintendo has a bit of a history of pricing games higher than other platforms when coming to the market mid-cycle compared to other console platforms – in this case PS5 and Xbox Series.
"I remember back in the day N64 titles being more than PlayStation titles, for example. Some of that is related to cost of goods, but Nintendo also likes to follow its own approach and price based on its own appreciation of value."
Harding-Rolls doesn't believe the higher game prices will impact the Switch 2 in the short term.
"I don’t expect the pricing to stop early adopters buying into Mario Kart World and many will be buying the bundle anyway. Based on this I think some top tier Nintendo titles will launch at this price point and some third parties will also follow suit."
Executive Director & Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana (NPD) Mat Piscatella stated, "I don't see this as being a massive challenge for year one for Switch 2 in particular. But we are in interesting times, with some unprecedented (at least in anyone's current lifetime) factors.
"I think the more interesting question is what may happen with the rest of the video game market, particularly in the US."
Piscatella added, "My read is that the most likely scenario is that we'll see video game product pricing start to rise in the US, although these changes may not be consistent or universal. I'm also expecting that consumers will shift even more to free to play/live service games as they try to grapple with increased costs in everyday spending categories like food."
"I anticipate the console market in particular to continue to shift to older and/or more affluent consumers, as other parts of the market will lean even more into readily available and accessible mobile and PC gaming.
"I'm also expecting the decline of physical software sales to accelerate even more, as physical versions of games may end up carrying higher pricing than digital versions."
"Or perhaps only some (or even none) of those expectations will end up playing out," Piscatella concluded. "Who knows."
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 Bluesky.
More Articles
I legit think their pricing stance will end up hurting them or at best they break even with a hurt image. There's just no way they'll be able to pump out 10 mil sellers at the pace the Switch did when games cost up to 50 % more in Europe and and 16-33 % more in the US (for now). That's an extremely hard sell to casuals. Even if they make the same revenue as they would have otherwise, and a bit more profit, they'll be reacing less customers which hurts them in the long run.
Over the past 5 years (FY20 - FY24) they've had an operating profit of over $20 billion with all of their games except one launching at $60 or less.
The price increase hasn't been forced by inflation, It's $80 because Nintendo believes that's how high they can set the price and it still sell.
People keep brining up the price games were on N64 and prior ignoring how different the gaming industry is today. Mario Kart 64 sold under 10m, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is approaching 70m copies. The increase in sales volume more than makes up for it. There's a reason so many gaming companies have been setting sales records over and over again recently.
The number of games people buy has increased massively, how many n64 games did you buy a year?
Yeah exactly. Nintendo made straight bank on the Switch, they aren't exactly struggling, their games aren't struggling to break even. They are selling >20 million copies of their biggest games and probably breaking even at the 1-2mil mark on most of those.
This has absolutely nothing to do with inflation or needing to increase the price to cover the cost of the games, this is greed. Switch was so popular they never had to discount the systems, never had to discount the games, so they are coming into Switch 2 with the idea that they can charge anything they want.
I hate to say it, as a lifelong Nintendo gamer, but they are about to get a rude awakening when millions of people they expect to be handing over half a grand to get the system and $70-$80 per game suddenly don't show up to buy.
Previously, when they made the same sort of absurd pricing mistake with the 3DS, they were able to recognize their mistake and do a drastic change, and make the system successful...only question is are they will to do that again once they see sales fall well below expectations within a few months of launch, or are they gonna trudge ahead stubbornly and just accept much smaller sales and take the business hit and refuse to admit they f**cked up their pricing strategy and got greedy.
I'm hoping by this time next year Switch is $400 and they publicly announce they will not do another $80 game.
I'll happily keep playing my affordable Switch until I see Nintendo take action to reduce prices of their next gen offerings.
And yes, the market/industry is a very different place than it was $30 years ago. Also anyway inflation statistics don't make sense to bring up for tech industries because these are the industries whose advance greatly outpaces inflation, so tech prices should NEVER keep up with inflation. I bought a 32 inch standard definition fat heavy TV 21/22 years ago for $300 (might have been over $300), and a week ago I bought a 55 inch 4k flat screen TV for $260 - tech advances far faster than inflation deflates the dollar, so yeah anyone saying well NES games or N64 games these days would be $150 inflation adjusted simply don't understand what they are talking about.
I find it funny the analysts that say gamers will simply accept this and it won't cause any less sales. It's like these analysts have paid no attention to the absolute uproar that has taken place in the entire gaming community as soon as these prices were seen.
There are tons of gamers who will wait for prices to drop. As someone who has had every Nintendo console except WiiU, and bought N64, GC, and Wii on launch day, and Switch four months after launch the first time I could get my hands on it, I will be waiting, perhaps years, for prices to come down. If prices never come down, and I do end up paying these absurd prices, I'll be buying only a handful of first party fully priced games rather than the like 20 I've bought for Switch.
This will absolutely affect sales in a big way among gamers. And then among casuals, think about parents who bought multiple Switches for each of their kids, there's no way they are going to be buying multiple Switch 2's at 50% higher prices. The one upside I guess for families is that they only have to buy one version at least for multiplayer games I guess with that new game sharing feature, but still they aren't gonna be dropping so much money on multiple systems this time around so that won't even matter.
The analysts that say jacking up the price a huge amount won't affect sales I guess weren't around for PS3 or 3DS, or hell what we've seen on this site in terms of Japan sales of PS5 Pro and PS5 in general after the price increase. When you suddenly put out a product that is much more expensive than what people are used to paying, sales are gonna go way down. Nintendo sales are gonna drop well below Switch levels as soon as the launch hype dies down, which, will probably only take a month or two at these prices and with no Mario game.
Only a significant drop in the sales would stop them from being so greedy. But since ppl are always happy to pay more and more, I guess games will be sold 100 bucks around 2030.
I think many people are not taking into account that NES games, such as Zelda, were costing $50.+ in 1986/87. What does it cost to go out to eat or see a movie and get popcorn and soda these days...and you get 2 hours of entertainment from it? Would I rather pay the $60. for a Switch game like I still was in 2025? Sure. Is it unreasonable for a physical game that can provide tens or even hundreds of hours of entertainment, to cost $70. or $80. now, some 25+ years later? I don't think it is.
You also aren't taking into account volume of sales. DLC. Microtransactions. Subscriptions.
Nintendo is making more money for every game release than they did during the NES era.
More copies of every game are being sold.
If Nintendo wasn't breaking profit records, I could see your argument... But that simply isn't the case.
Greeeeeeeeeeed
We get it, you hate Nintendo and think they're just being greedy.
The analyst may think what he wants. In the end, we have all seen how much DLC Nintendo released for MK8 and how much they charged. And I am damn sure that Nintendo will do it once more. So rather than 90, "the whole package" will probably cost 150$+ (across 2 season passes for 30$ each)
Also, unlike the other developers in the industry which burn money with their 150 million+ dollar games, only to get a marginal graphical upgrade, Nintendo is conservative with much, much lower budget. That alone allows them to not do horrendous MTX and DLV practices.
Overall, the analyst has a twisted view on these things.
Also, video games arent too cheap. Adjusted by inflation and taking the "100 times higher cost" into account, developers have increased their profits. And that is before DLC and MTXs.
Maybe they should start not spending hundreds of millions on them, before they talk about price increases?
