I've always seen conflicting perspective online whenever the topic of Nintendo first-party software prices comes up.
It's been long established that Nintendo likes to keep their first-party games at full retail price pretty much in perpetuity throughout a given console's lifespan. Over the Switch's long and prosperous lifecycle, Nintendo has never even elected to release a discounted "Selects" line of physical versions of their games. That means that nearly all of their games, regardless of when they initially released, have maintained their original $60 price tag indefinitely. The only occasional exception to this is when Nintendo will authorize some slight digital or physical discounts (~15% usually) for a limited time to coincide with some holiday or overarching sale event.
Is Metroid Dread still worth $60 retail even years after release? I think so.
Nintendo has stated before that they try not to deflate the value of their games, and I think that they've been largely successful in doing so these last seven years. After all, Nintendo tends to do things differently from their peers in the industry, and I feel like this Switch generation has really been a convincing realization of the effectiveness of that approach. They have long been the only console manufacturer who doesn't sell their hardware at a loss, and their games remain full price indefinitely while most other publishers end up steeply discounting their products weeks or months after release.
I personally think that it's no only an effective way of preserving the perceived (and measurable) value of their work, but I also think it only works in conjunction with high-quality and evergreen games.
I know that not everyone feels that way, however. So I'd like for this thread to be a space in which we can hash out those differences in perspective.
To some, Nintendo's pricing strategy might be perceived as unfair or anti-consumer to some degree. To others like myself it's viewed as an effective business practice as well as a testament to the power of quality software to hold its value.
It's been long established that Nintendo likes to keep their first-party games at full retail price pretty much in perpetuity throughout a given console's lifespan. Over the Switch's long and prosperous lifecycle, Nintendo has never even elected to release a discounted "Selects" line of physical versions of their games. That means that nearly all of their games, regardless of when they initially released, have maintained their original $60 price tag indefinitely. The only occasional exception to this is when Nintendo will authorize some slight digital or physical discounts (~15% usually) for a limited time to coincide with some holiday or overarching sale event.
Is Metroid Dread still worth $60 retail even years after release? I think so.
Nintendo has stated before that they try not to deflate the value of their games, and I think that they've been largely successful in doing so these last seven years. After all, Nintendo tends to do things differently from their peers in the industry, and I feel like this Switch generation has really been a convincing realization of the effectiveness of that approach. They have long been the only console manufacturer who doesn't sell their hardware at a loss, and their games remain full price indefinitely while most other publishers end up steeply discounting their products weeks or months after release.
I personally think that it's no only an effective way of preserving the perceived (and measurable) value of their work, but I also think it only works in conjunction with high-quality and evergreen games.
I know that not everyone feels that way, however. So I'd like for this thread to be a space in which we can hash out those differences in perspective.
To some, Nintendo's pricing strategy might be perceived as unfair or anti-consumer to some degree. To others like myself it's viewed as an effective business practice as well as a testament to the power of quality software to hold its value.
