As a bundled launch title I expect most launch window sales will be digital. There won’t be 2nd hand game cards on the market in any volume until after they drop the bundle.

If it sells out, expect a price drop in a few years

Switch sold out in 2017, and now the same basic Neon model is selling for the same price in 2025.

In Australia we had an au$90 price tier with only 6 titles:

• Breath of the Wild
• Pokkén Tournament DX
• Fire Emblem Warriors
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate
• Tears of the Kingdom

All their other A list titles were au$80, for example:

• Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Pokémon Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet
• Super Mario Party / Superstars / Jamboree
• New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe / Super Mario Wonder

Then titles smaller releases were placed at $70, for example:

• 1-2-Switch
• Go Vacation
• Fitness Boxing 2/ 3
• Miitopia
• WarioWare: Get It Together / Move it

You can see they used the $90 tier quite aggressively early in the piece and then scaled back significantly with almost 5 years between Smash Bros and Tears of the Kingdom.

At the same time they made sure the Marios (Kart, 3d, 2d, Party, Sports), Pokemons and other franchises with broad all-ages appeal were priced a little lower at $80.

To be honest I’m a bit worried about the pricing for Super Mario Kart World, the previous one was the beat selling Switch title and if they come out of the gate with high sales they may take the wrong lessons and try to lock in that au$120 price (a 50% increase!).

On the other hand they may just be price anchoring with the bundle. Having the standalone console priced at au$700 and the bundle at au$770 will let the consumer find ways to justify the purchase, they might say the console is worth $700 so the game is only $70,or they might argue the game is $120 so the console is only $650. Either way will make them feel better about giving Nintendo the money.

I suppose the best outcome for the consumer would be for most people to get MKW in the bundle and then hopefully the next title they release at that price point has lacklustre sales. If they see they sell more units at a lower price it can be a good outcome for everyone.

I don‘t see 90% discounts in the Nintendo shop

Not 1st party sure, but there is a weekly deal cycle where 3rd party publishers compete to stand out.

https://www.dekudeals.com/games?filter[critic_score]=70&filter[platform]=switch&filter[format]=digital&filter[discount]=discounted

These are the top 5 sellers on Switch:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate
• The legend of Zelda:Breath of the Wild
• Super Mario Odyssey

These links take you to a price tracker with a chart showing historical prices. The RRP of each of these has been static, and discounts are short and infrequent.

In a break from form Nintendo hasn’t released a budget “Selects” label for older titles this generation.

Their emulators have always been proprietary. The waters were a little muddied by the NES/SNES Classic consoles using a Linux OS but the emulators were their own code.

Their FOSS code is made available when required and is published here:

https://support.nintendo.com/jp/oss/index.html

For Mario Party Jamboree, and Kirby and the Forgotten Land they are including additional content (a bit like adding Bowser’s Fury or Lanky Kong). For the Zeldas they are adding second screen features.

I don’t like the up sell but it is offering something, I can see them feeling they have a justification for the fee there.

Really I’m surprised they are offering the upgrade licences as cards they can see in 3rd party stores, hopefully we see some competition there.

Switch titles were great because most titles I purchased were either 1st party or indie.

The Indies were usually modest in scope and priced accordingly and all of my 1st party games were purchased with 2 for au$135 vouchers.

These bought the per title price down to the equivalent of us$38 (pre tax), quite a bargain and I bought quite a few games in launch week where i would have been waiting for a sale on other platforms.

Now the voucher page is telling me:

Regarding Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games: Please note that Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers cannot be redeemed for Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games.

If they don’t offer an equivalent Switch 2 Voucher program I’m likely to pass on the smaller releases.

Interesting to see reasons for where compatibility is physically impossible:

1. The console is a different shape and can’t fit the LABO frames
2. The Joy-Con 2 are a different shape and can’t fit the Ring-Con or Leg Strap.
3. The Jon-Con 2 don’t have the IR Motion Camera
4. The Jon-Con 2 rumble is weaker than Joy Con

Well spotted!

I missed that while i was reading the supported resolutions on the screen.

So this thing only takes microSD Express cards?

Are there any larger than 256GB on the market?

I have a 1TB card in my Switch 1 and I would rather not downgrade the capacity if there are any options.

Edit: all good, lexar is offering 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB cards.

https://americas.lexar.com/product/lexar-play-pro-microsdxc-express-card/

Its a strategic time for this regime to be implemented. With a sequel console on the horizon a lot of households are going to become 2 switch families soon. Anything to make customers more comfortable spending money will speed the uptake.

For PlayStation I liked they way they let each user nominate 1 primary PS4 and 1 primary PS5. They both could play the PS4 library without restriction so the old console was a perfect hand-me-down.

In comparison for Xbox they have maintained that the whole platform is homogeneous with each account only allowed one home console at a time be it One or Series.

Its still missing physical object’s killer app: permanent license transferability.

With physical objects I can buy them from others, give them to friends, etc and that transfer can be permanent.

All of this lend and automatically return is just a mechanism to block permanent license transfer.

Switch is conspicuously absent from the release platforms.

If I had to guess I would say they are skipping Switch 1 and it will be on Switch 2 when that drops.

That’s a bit like saying you can buy flour and bake bread.

Some people are interested in a.product that is immediately ready to use as a simple convenience. Others might be on console that doesn’t offer the origial title or allow mods.

The 1.7 million customers who originated from a top 2023 release

This wording is a bit strange, are they tracking the new steam accounts that signed up to buy a specific 2023 title (like Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, or Starfield)?

If so it says more about the specific demographic attracted to that unknown title than it does about Steam in general.

Edit:

The methodology is explained here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/751641001553035271

To gather data illustrating the effectiveness of that approach, we went all the way back to 2023 and identified the biggest 20 releases of that year. We looked at every new first-time purchaser generated by those products (that is, an account making a purchase, or redeeming a Steam key, for the first time) for a total of 1.7 million new users.

Im not in UK either but I thought Uber teens was being trialed there too. ( kids of 13 would be eligible). This would allow kids to travel with family linked uber accounts and while that sounds a little iffy it lets the parents see where and when a journey is taken in real time. Some might view that as safer than a bus.

But bank accounts? I opened a prepaid visa card for my 4yo when he started cashing in the recyclable containers we collected at our house. Checking the balance on payday or before a planned purchase has been part of his financial literacy. When he turned 8 real banks deemed him old enough for a keycard and we swapped to a proper transaction/savings combo at a proper bank.

So… kids don’t need to catch an uber, check a bus schedule, see what’s on at the local cinema,.etc?

The fact is that many services and information channels are now internet first and limiting access to the home seems like it would be a problem.

Edit: checking a bank balance is another one. With an increase in digital transactions and a decrease in available ATMs, having an tool to check your balance seems crucial.

So what I really want is a game that gives me a sense of achievement, and with the vaguest possibility that I actually might finish it. And so it’d be really interesting to know how many games are actually finished, and how many games are just abandoned by what proportion of people.

It can be fun to go to an achievement/trophy tracker and compare the numbers for the awards for first and last story missions.

For GTA5 some numbers are:

• Welcome to Los Santos: 1,736,456
• To Live or Die in Los Santos: 565,297

For Assassins Creed Odyssey:

• This is Sparta: 417,003
• Odyssey’s end: 207,371

The future is indeed dumb. The 2022 GoldenEye has it’s own baggage.

I don’t think Nintendo was willing to let Microsoft sell it as a physical product (collectors would view it as superior to Nintendo’s NSO requirement).