This is something ive been thinking about for years, but never really elaborated on or posted anywhere. I think it has to do with most people not considering games as proper art, but mainly entertainment/something to pass the time with, so its treated more like a product. Now i think that having this convo rn is a mess because people are rightfully still shocked at nintendo's pricing policy and not willing to have a nuanced talk, but this is a discussion that needs to be had at some point. And im someone who always looks for deals and buys mostly used or discounted games.
As an example, i actually think part of ubisoft's demise has to do with them devaluing their own games so much to sell more copies in spite of huge budgets, leading people to wait for their inevitable sales and seeing their ips as lesser games. They used to unironically have genius, industry leading game design ideas at times, and now they're a joke. And thats also partly why Nintendo games have such prestige. Iwata famously said they don't lower game prices because to them it would be like devaluing their art. Of course there were the Nintendo selects titles, but they always dropped at the tail end of the gen. And now most of their ips have done record numbers on switch and are highly acclaimed.

honestly the biggest fumble of the direct for me lol.

Also, if you really think about it, its crazy the amount of entertainment you get with videogames for the asking price. Movies, whether a ticket to the theatre or blu ray, are 15-30€ and provide max 3 hours of runtime. Even the shortest games from big publishers at full price of 60€ like Metroid dread give you 10/15 hours of content.
I think books have the best value tho

Something will always be both a product and art in a market economy.

That xenoblade series 4k 60fps patch is gonna hit like crack cocaine, i may not even need to buy 80€ Nintendo games for a whole year (unless its a new xeno game to add to the list )

I feel mostly the same tbh. I've never cared for Donkey Kong so Bananza doesn't interest me personally, although I am very happy for those of you who love DK games.

Mario Kart on the other hand is a classic franchise that I have played since the N64, and don't get me wrong: I think Mario Kart World looks great overall and I know it's going to be very enjoyable. Mario Kart is just not a "OMG I need this on day 1" system seller for me personally. Knowing myself I will probably still get it on day 1 but I would much rather have a single player adventure game on day 1 like 3D Zelda or 3D Mario (I'll make an exception for Splatoon). Whenever I've bought a system in the past, the main selling point for me has always been the single player Zelda game or the single player Mario game.

But games are the only products that lose a lot value over time. Vinyls never drop in price, blu rays neither, same with cds, ticket prices, etc. You can argue they're lower than game prices so they don't need price drops, but then you can also argue that games offer a lot more content. So i think it really is people treating games as products only. And you can see it in general discourse like comparing the "worth" of games, thats usually based on amount of content, or graphics. Talking about games a lot of times feels like talking about home appliances or smartphones and s***. Although i'll acknowledge that recently the economic recess around the world is impacting this discussion as well, but the sentiment didnt start with covid or even 2008

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour will be GOTY

Don't quote me on this

Watching the Nintendo Treehouse for MKW, DK Bananza and MP4 sold me on the Switch 2

The graphics for these game look NEXT GEN. Obviously not PS5 / Series X next gen, but “Nintendo next gen” lol.

I’m very impressed

To be fair, Nintendo releases fully complete games on day 1 with the full games on cart 90%+ of the time so while I am still kinda mad af (lol) at the price of Mario Kart World and “Switch 2 Version” games, Nintendo ALWAYS delivers on quality

dude holy F*** metroid prime 4 looks SOOOOO GOOD

can't believe I'm watching a treehouse streaming in 4k in 2025, s*** looks bonkers on my tv

Nintendo is changing extra for no reason is the issue. They aren’t making 100 million budget games like the other guys so their budget and costs to run and make money aren’t as crazy as Sony or Microsoft

It just seems greedy

MK world looks insane tbh

The "games are art" argument and comparison to music and movies is a little silly to me because yes, games are art, but they're products too. When Mach-Hommy was selling his digital albums for like $500, would you buy it? Even if you were a really big Mach-Hommy fan? Guess where his music ended up. Streaming services across the board. That's where CD's and vinyl prices ended up. Into a $12 a month subscription service.

Before Your Eyes is one of my favorite games ever made. I played it for 2 hours and paid full price for it. It was like $10. Why? Because if they put it up on the Steam page for $300, no one in their right mind would buy it. Even me. Because art is worth something to everyone, it's just a different amount of worth.

To me, no Nintendo game is worth $80. At least of what they showed me. It might be worth it to you, which is fine, but it's definitely not worth it to me. And from the perception online, it's definitely not worth it to a lot of people. This extends to movies, to books, to music, to paintings and sculptures and all forms of media and art.

It's also extremely hard to swallow a price increase in launch games when Nintendo has been a historically greedy company, and has made more net profit since the release of the Switch than their entire fiscal existence before 2016.

90$ for Mario kart

Don't get me wrong, if you wanna get the MK World and Switch 2 bundle and you're gonna have a good time, I think people chastising that is annoying and you should get it.

But folks are getting into a slippery slope if you allow big gaming companies to keep raising up prices for the sake of "art". Because there's a whole lotta games coming out that could barely be considered art and will be following that price increase

how do i do this

And that’s fine. I don’t mind spending a day 1 full price of $70 if the game runs and looks good and is fully on cart. I do not mind. It’s changing full price and releasing a “fake physical” for full price just to make a couple extra bucks that’s annoying af

Dumb ass boutta buy a pack in looking ass game lmao

Emulation

how quick will this sell out on best buy website?

It will sell out the moment it’s updated on the backend lol

Follow Wario64 he’ll post the back door link the moment it’s up

I feel you. I agree.

Video games are art and hard work is put into them. And for the amount of time you get with most video games, $60 and $70 is definitely worth the “price of admission”. I think the issue is so many video games are released in half finished states and not on disc / cartridge and they nickel and dime you with micro transactions.

I think most gamers are fine with paying a larger price for something if they get a high quality product.

Nintendo always releases high quality and complete games so the $80 is probably worth it. I’m still mad at Mario Kart World’s price but I’ll probably end up buying it. It was just an out of nowhere sticker shock

I probably will buy MKW at $80 but I think why people are mad is not at Nintendo but at the video game industry in general for selling half assed games at full price

And your Ubisoft point, I agree. When you lower the values of your art, it gets perceived as lower quality and not worth the price so no one buys Ubisoft games at full price, even if it’s worth the full price.

Thats why people still buy physicals of Nintendo games. We all perceive their games as worth spending full price cus Nintnedo views their own games as worth it

I’m not mad at that. We all got our different tastes in games. I’m not necessarily the biggest DK fan but Banaza looks Mario level quality so it’s a day 1 buy

I like to usually play single player games too but I gotta have them multiplayer games so Mario Kart is a must buy