Nintendo is testing the wallets of gamers becoming the first publisher to raise the price of its games to $80. The newly announced Super Mario World will be the first Nintendo game priced at $80, and that's for a digital copy. If you opt for a physical copy of the game it will cost $90.
To be clear, this will not be the price of every Nintendo Switch 2 game as Donkey Kong Bananaza, which was also revealed for the Switch 2 today, is priced at $70. Up until now, most first-party games for the Nintendo Switch have cost $59.99 at launch. Nintendo has only released one game at the $70 price point, and that was The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It now seems $70 will be the new minimum for first-party Nintendo titles.
This is also the first time we're seeing an increase in price for a physical copy of a Nintendo game. Priced at $90, a physical copy of Mario Kart World will cost $10 more than if you were to purchase it digitally. It's possible this price increase is being used to encourage digital sales in order to kill the secondhand gaming market.
If $80 is too rich for your blood, you can opt for the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World Bundle which is priced at $499.99. With a standalone Switch 2 piced at $449, this means you're getting Mario Kart World for $50, a much easier price point to digest.
At this point, it's unclear what criteria Nintendo will use to determine the prices of its first-party games. It's possible that with the newly introduced game sharing, any first-party multiplayer game will cost $80 since only one person needs to own a copy of it.
Prior to today, it was thought that Grand Theft Auto 6 could be the first game to test the $80 price point. Now that Nintendo has blown it open, it's almost certain that Take-Two and Rockstar will follow suit. Heck, they may even charge upwards of $100, especially if a game like Mario Kart could command $80.
Given that the cost of developing games has risen tenfold over the past decade or so, many of us expected an eventual increase in game prices. I think it was just a bit unexpected to see Nintendo as the first publisher to move the needle, especially with a game like Mario Kart World. Perhaps Nintendo is quietly hoping the $80 to $90 price tag for Mario Kart World will encourage more gamers to opt for the Switch 2 bundle at launch.
Speaking of launch, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be available on June 5th for $449.99. Pre-orders open up on April 9th.