Kelly

Switch games are sourced only from Nintendo

I'm pretty sure some regions can buy Nintendo digital games from humble store.

The don't support my region so j don't know what the range is like but I believe it as available for some places.

I don't think he has a great understanding of Australian prices.

The current MKW price of au$120 looks high but if you remove our GST and convert to USD with the average exchange rate over the last 12 months its equivalent to us$70.85. (Donky Kong is au$110 or us$65).

We are currently at a low point with our dollar so the conversion for MKW today would be us$66.49. (DK would be us$61).

Compared to the prices I'm seeing internationally it looks like Australia is getting relatively generous prices from Nintendo.

Interesting, maybe we are just getting a good deal.

Their preliminary thoughts are that the direct's footage for this title was probably processed incorrectly and may not represent the experience on actual hardware.

https://youtu.be/BC8XX9pwP40?t=1h0m39s

I just calculated in another thread that the Australian pre sales tax price converts to us$383.91. That's without any language or region restrictions.

In the Australian market the base model is:

• selling for au$700
• if we remove GST we get au$635..45
• and convert to USD for us$383.91

If we compare the listed US price:

• 450 ÷ 383.91 = 1.172

So the US price was already about 17% higher than our local price, a position that may have been taken in anticipation of the US tariffs.

How do the other international pre sales tax prices compare to the US? Is this pattern across the board or is Australia an anomaly?

Except Mario Kart has had its fair share of paid post release content lately. We can't expect it to be the one-off purchase it once was.

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 AAA 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 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 in the middle 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 really 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 SMKW 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.