Starting with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book in May, Nintendo will start implementing a new pricing strategy for its first-party games, the Japanese publisher announced. From then on, physical and digital Nintendo games will have a “different” manufacturer’s suggested retail price, Nintendo said in a press release.
Does this mean digital Nintendo games are about to be cheaper than retail copies? In the case of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, the answer is yes. The digital version of the green dinosaur adventure is listed at $59.99 at the eShop, whereas the physical version will sell for $69.99, the standard Switch 2 MSRP. However, Nintendo did not explicitly say that it will now make all of its digital-only games cheaper.
The change will also only apply to Nintendo games, as the publisher notes that retail partners are still free to set their own prices. Theoretically, this could mean that some stores might continue selling Nintendo games for the previous price points. We won’t see how this plays out until May. Nintendo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Nintendo games offer the same experiences whether in packaged or digital format, and this change simply reflects the different costs associated with producing and distributing each format and offers players more choice in how they can buy and play Nintendo games,” a press release reads.
To speculate here, it’s possible that Nintendo does mean its games will now be sold for lower prices than before, but the publisher is hesitant to associate its brand with the word “cheap.” Nintendo’s entire brand hinges on the appearance of a premium product, after all. However, spending in the video game industry has gone down since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and reports suggest that the publisher will slow down its production of hardware due to softer sales than expected.
Lowering the price of digital games could entice users who might not normally purchase a game into taking the plunge. And Nintendo is not alone in adopting the strategy: Earlier this year, Sony made headlines after users discovered that the PlayStation store had experimented with dynamic pricing for games on discount.
