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[DeuceGamer]

For me? Hell no. I'm talking for the population in general. You know, the kind that happily pays full retail price for games, or even double that to get some stupid trinkets in a "Collector's" Edition.

There is no outrage about the increased price fro the physical version of Puyo Puyo Tetris, and that's probably in large part due to the inclusion of keychains that were mass produced for about $1.



Dammit, I keep screwing that up. I knew it wasn't on one or the other for PS4.

Right, I was speaking more in general terms of most consumers. If I had my choice the Switch version would be the same as other versions, at the same price.

Since we are discussing why Switch games are more expensive, I'm stating that if they are going to increase the price regardless, they should go ahead and throw in something like a full color manual, soundtrack, etc... Again though, if it was my choice it would be exactly the same as other versions.

 

[Lupin the Third]

Passing the manufacturing costs onto consumers is nothing new. The bigger the ROM size, the more expensive the game. If a Switch game costs $3 to manufacture for the publisher, that's a loss of $150,000 if they sell 500k units. It's just bottom line business.

I still remember these days...

On a tangental note, I'm pretty sure this is the Canadian version of the CD catalog. Lots of SNES games were $60 US, these are all ~$70+.

 

[Broken Hope]

Port cost comes into blame as well. I was disappointed Nintendo went with ARM because that means companies have to devote entire teams into porting games to their system. It might be "easy" to port but it still costs time, money and requires teams. PS4/XB1/PC are all x86 now and the Switch will suffer being the lone system with a different architecture. I think they should have went Android since companies are invested in that platform.

Rime's $10 Nintendo tax is certainly due to ARM and the cartridge format.

Devs aren't programming in x86 or ARM that's what middleware is for.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Yeah, I goofed. Ignore me. Still, it still costs money effort to port to ARM and instead of one team working on x86 platform ports for 3 systems, they would need a team just for ARM/Switch and I'm not sure many devs are willing to take the risk.

Yeah that's not how it works but ok.

 

[Pif]

It is the N64 all over again.

 

[audio_delay]

Publishers and devs are not your friend, they are out to make money.
The argument that shops can only sell cart version of switch or 3ds games isn't right either. In the past and present you can purchase eshop codes from some highstreet shops (it should be all to be honest).
So stop defending or attacking companies, that are out there to make money of us.
As I said before, everyone should boycott any version of this game, or any game, that tries to charge more for one specific version, unless it is actually different, i.e. Director's Cut or unique game mode, etc.
Unless a publisher actually show real hard evidence, to justify their pricing, don't believe them.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Port cost comes into blame as well. I was disappointed Nintendo went with ARM because that means companies have to devote entire teams into porting games to their system. It might be "easy" to port but it still costs time, money and requires teams. PS4/XB1/PC are all x86 now and the Switch will suffer being the lone system with a different architecture.

Rime's $10 Nintendo tax is certainly due to ARM and the cartridge format.

I don't think you know what you're talking about

 

[10k]

Port cost comes into blame as well. I was disappointed Nintendo went with ARM because that means companies have to devote entire teams into porting games to their system. It might be "easy" to port but it still costs time, money and requires teams. PS4/XB1/PC are all x86 now and the Switch will suffer being the lone system with a different architecture.

Rime's $10 Nintendo tax is certainly due to ARM and the cartridge format.

Not this argument again. Industry standard architecture isn't a big deal.

 

[zelas]

We've also heard that the cost of the cart depends on the size of the cart. Switch game card carts come in a variety of capacities: 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. At a high level, the bigger the cart the more expensive it is, although the price may vary according to print run (lower the volume, higher the price, for example - an issue that may affect indie developers who don't expect to shift a huge number of copies of their game).

Developers working on Switch have to be mindful of the size of the game, because that will determine the cart it'll ship on. (As an aside, we asked Tequila Works how big Rime is on Switch. It replied: "as the Switch version is still being developed by Tantalus Media, we cannot estimate the final size yet.")

32GB is the biggest size, really? Well no wonder they talking as if they're going to do better with indie devs. Looks like they're not interested in a lot of AAA game support or they're really hoping those devs will make games so watered down from PS4/XB1/PC that they might as well be an exclusive version.

 

[Lucifon]

Personally I feel there's a small extra cost for the carts but the rest is pure and simple "new console tax". Trying to investigate it speaking to publishers only gives power to publishers pushing for it and increases the likelyhood that other publishers will jump on board. "If they can get away with charging a tenner more then we sure can!"

 

[DeuceGamer]

Right.

There's much more to it than that.

The following is all rough math with no actual manufacturing costs of each company:


If you take my example numbers, it would cost $3 a cart. Let's say they do a production run of 100,000 carts for Switch. That's $300,000 in manufacturing right there.

To print the same quantity for PS4/XB1 it's about $75,000. ($0.75 a disc)

That's a $225,000 difference right there.

Keep in mind, console makers get a 30% cut and retailers usually get %20. So for the $29.99 retail price, the publisher gets $14.99 (50%).

If they only anticipate 100,000 copies sold for each platform, you're looking at revenue's of 1.5m for PS4 and XB1 copies minus the $75k each it took to print those discs (so a profit of 19.99% so let's round up to 20%).

If the switch version also sells all of the 100,000 copies at the same price of $29.99 minus the manufacturing of carts ($300k) you're looking at a profit of 1.5m - 300k = 1.2m. The profit margin of that is 4%.

Notice how the profit margin for retail PS4 and XB1 games is 20% vs the 4% of the Switch retail units? That isn't a big enough return on investment.


So in order to make up for that cost, they either need to sell many more switch copies or charge more for their game. They likely have a target sales number and market research that suggests it won't sell enough at retail to warrant the extra costs, therefore, they charge more.

So what happens when they charge $39.99? They get their 50% cut of each which is now $19.99. If they sell all 100k they manufactured at that price the profit margin becomes (4m revenue - 300k manufacturing = 3.6m) $3.7m/300k = 12.33% profit margin.

So basically, it's not just as simple as saying "carts don't cost $10 more to make so why is the game $10 more?" there's more to it than that.

Add in the risk of unsold copies and they need to add a little cushion. The publisher would probably need to sell it for $45 to get a profit margin on par with the disc based games.

I find this interesting but to me it seems like it would be a better option for them to increase the price by $5 for the Physical version. That would increase their profit margin per unit some, while bringing the overall profit for the entire print run up to the PS4/X1 ballpark.

Seems like a fair trade off considering the Switch version is a late port and doesn't incur the full development costs of the PS4/X1.

What do we estimate the costs of 3DS carts are?

Edit: I guess in their mind if they are increasing the costs, they may as well go all the way with it as even a $5 increase may result in the same negativity. My thing was that some wanted to say the carts were $10 more, while this provides a bit more of an explanation that makes a little more sense.

 

[KnightimeX_Legacy]

Pretty sure Nintendo got paid by brick and mortar companies to not reduce digital game prices.

tinfoilhat.jpg

 

[Lupin the Third]

Pretty sure Nintendo got paid by brick and mortar companies to not reduce digital game prices.

tinfoilhat.jpg

Puyo Puyo Tetris is $10 cheaper when purchased digitally.

 

[mrklaw]

Yup. I've said this in threads in 2016. I fully expect games on cartridges to be more expensive than disc. Blu-ray were already under $1-2 per disc back in early 2010s. They're probably less than a dollar now.

The spot price of memory, however, is not in the same price level. According to current markets, the spot price of flash memory is around $2.20 and the spot price of 8GB SD cards is over $3.00 per unit. Now add in the customization for the Switch and Nintendo's markup.

Edit:
Spot prices of memory and SD cards is trending upwards.

what is important is that a low cost of manufacture gives Sony/MS pricing flexibility. If a disc is ~ $1 then you can offer flexible license fees - so a mid price game you might charge a $6 license fee (license + disc cost), whereas for a $60 game you might charge $12.

If physical cards are much more expensive - e.g. $5, then that is much cheaper more difficult for Nintendo to offer flexing on lower priced games - and even for full price games they might still need to charge a higher license fee than the others.

 

[Scoobie]

Surely this price disparity between switch and other consoles will hold back its success, disappointing.

 

[DeuceGamer]

Would be interesting to see a comparison of cart costs between Switch, Vita, and 3DS. While I realize Switch carts cost more than Blu-rays I also believe that Vita/3DS carts cost more than Blu-Ray. In the case of Vita it didn't cause the multiplat games to be more expensive but was actually the opposite.

 

[mrklaw]

The digital physical argument is a strange one to me since almost every game on the PSN is higher than in bricks and mortar stores when it first comes out and there after unless its in a sale!

That isn't a Nintendo problem, that's an industry pandering to ailing bricks and mortar stores whom if they fear digital so much, should alter their business practices accordingly aka Game not charging 20% more than every other retailer for physical copies

Partly it might be pandering to retailers. But I expect publishers also welcome an effective ASP increase which they will think they need to sustain increased development costs. Perhaps the only way games are still $60 at retail is because digital partially subsidises that

 

[Mooreberg]

It is the N64 all over again.

I don't think the price difference is nearly that extreme. Weren't N64 carts $25 each to publishers? There is a reason the "greatest hits" equivalent was $39.99.

I think this is more like the Gamecube situation. Only there, a lot of devs seemed to lower audio or FMV bitrate to make games fit on one disc a lot of the time. Here, it is the mandatory equal pricing between retail and digital that has people who download games paying a price premium on physical costs they are not dealing with on a given title.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

So I swear that we'd seen news of Puyo Puyo Tetris being $30 digitally on the Switch, but Nintendo's website indicates $40:

http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/puyo-puyo-tetris-switch

That means parity with the physical Switch version, but now both Switch versions are more expensive than the PS4 version.

 

[protomouse]

World of Final Fantasy is $39 on Vita, and $59 on PS4. Several other instances of Vita cards being 10-20 bucks cheaper than the PS4 discs (SoA Lost Song, Senran Kagura Estival Versus, Root Letter) also come to mind, and I can't think of a single case where the reverse applies (unless it's a Japanese import or something).

I'm not buying it (literally and figuratively).

 

[SmokedMeat]

On a tangental note, I'm pretty sure this is the Canadian version of the CD catalog. Lots of SNES games were $60 US, these are all ~$70+.

I worked retail back then in Electronics. Those definitely weren't US prices, although the high meg games did hit $75.

 

[Stinkles]

Bigger issue for some publishers than cost, is the risk if a game performs poorly, or worse, if it's an unexpected breakout hit and you can't remanufacture quickly enough (digital ameliorates that however).

 

[Alebrije]

The No 3rd party support saga could continue :

WiiU because lack of hardware / console concept

Switch because more expensive games than PS4 /Xbone

Nintendo needs to do something ASAP. The only way a consumer will get the Switch version is If mobile is his her priority

 

[Stinkles]

Also, for multiformat games timing can get problematic. Say you have a game that you want to release in November on all three formats, that means you have to build your schedule to accommodate cart manufacturing (much slower) AND content updates/day one patches. Like it or not, most games are scheduled to ship mostly done with varying levels of update/addition on day one.

That means artificially adjusting the schedule for that third format and building in perhaps a month or two of buffer.

or the Switch version gets released later.


Further, good publishers will want to add meaningful mobile/touch/hybrid features.


But this is not really news. This is the situation since devs first received specs.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

Nintendo needs to do something ASAP. The only way a consumer will get the Switch version is If mobile is his her priority

Mobility is probably the primary motivating factor in buying on the Switch, but there's also the multiplayer factor. I've had my PS4 for 4 years, and I only have 3 controllers for it. I've had my Switch for a week and already have 5 controllers (2 pairs of Joy-cons and a Pro). Even if the Switch wasn't portable, it would make more sense for me to buy it on that platform over the PS4.

 

[NSESN]

So I swear that we'd seen news of Puyo Puyo Tetris being $30 digitally on the Switch, but Nintendo's website indicates $40:

http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/puyo-puyo-tetris-switch

That means parity with the physical Switch version, but now both Switch versions are more expensive than the PS4 version.

It appears as 40 canadian dollars for me

 

[SporeCrawler]

Vitas cartridges never were a problem for multiplats

 

[Oregano]

Also, for multiformat games timing can get problematic. Say you have a game that you want to release in November on all three formats, that means you have to build your schedule to accommodate cart manufacturing (much slower) AND content updates/day one patches. Like it or not, most games are scheduled to ship mostly done with varying levels of update/addition on day one.

That means artificially adjusting the schedule for that third format and building in perhaps a month or two of buffer.

or the Switch version gets released later.


Further, good publishers will want to add meaningful mobile/touch/hybrid features.


But this is not really news. This is the situation since devs first received specs.

Your other point is spot on but ugh at this. It always has and always will be the lamest excuse for not supporting the system. "Oh if we made a Wii U game we'd really want to use the Gamepad." - Utter BS.

 

[staticneuron]

A $4 manufacturing cost is huge though. After adding shipping, storing and paying for overruns (the risk of unsold copies) I can see how a small run could reach $10 extra (or close enough for rounding via the retailer anyway). Keep in mind BOI would even be the lowest possible price per cart because the game is so small. Other titles will be even more than that on bigger carts

Thanks, I was wondering why people were talking about this as if it was a straight comparison.

 

[EDarkness]

Where are people getting these manufacturing costs from?

 

[LordRaptor]

Bigger issue for some publishers than cost, is the risk if a game performs poorly, or worse, if it's an unexpected breakout hit and you can't remanufacture quickly enough (digital ameliorates that however).

RIME is coming in late and more expensive than on other platforms.

I mean... its possible it will be a breakout hit I suppose...

 

[DeuceGamer]

Vitas cartridges never were a problem for multiplats

Would love to see a comparison because not only was it not an issue on Vita but my recollection is that most Vita games were cheaper than their PS3 counterparts.

Where are people getting these manufacturing costs from?

They are making them up as examples I believe. Would be interesting to see a comparison with Switch, Vita, 3DS, PS4, and X1.

 

[MHWilliams]

Right.

There's much more to it than that.

The following is all rough math with no actual manufacturing costs of each company:

If you take my example numbers, it would cost $3 a cart. Let's say they do a production run of 100,000 carts for Switch. That's $300,000 in manufacturing right there.

To print the same quantity for PS4/XB1 it's about $75,000. ($0.75 a disc)

That's a $225,000 difference right there.

Keep in mind, console makers get a 30% cut and retailers usually get %20. So for the $29.99 retail price, the publisher gets $14.99 (50%).

If they only anticipate 100,000 copies sold for each platform, you're looking at revenue's of 1.5m for PS4 and XB1 copies minus the $75k each it took to print those discs (so a profit of 19.99% so let's round up to 20%).

If the switch version also sells all of the 100,000 copies at the same price of $29.99 minus the manufacturing of carts ($300k) you're looking at a profit of 1.5m - 300k = 1.2m. The profit margin of that is 4%.

Notice how the profit margin for retail PS4 and XB1 games is 20% vs the 4% of the Switch retail units? That isn't a big enough return on investment.


So in order to make up for that cost, they either need to sell many more switch copies or charge more for their game. They likely have a target sales number and market research that suggests it won't sell enough at retail to warrant the extra costs, therefore, they charge more.

So what happens when they charge $39.99? They get their 50% cut of each which is now $19.99. If they sell all 100k they manufactured at that price the profit margin becomes (4m revenue - 300k manufacturing = 3.6m) $3.7m/300k = 12.33% profit margin.

So basically, it's not just as simple as saying "carts don't cost $10 more to make so why is the game $10 more?" there's more to it than that.

Add in the risk of unsold copies and they need to add a little cushion. The publisher would probably need to sell it for $45 to get a profit margin on par with the disc based games.

As 10K points out, seeing as retail and Nintendo take out like 50% of the rrp, to recoup the additional cost the cart adds to the game production ($4), the game would need to retail at an additional $8 on the rrp.

if $30 is what the game costs on disc ($15 to pub/dev) then the game selling on card at $30 would only bring $11 to the pub/dev ($30-50%-$4). To get to that $15 mark again the game would need to sell at $38, and because no-ne retails at such a stupid number, they up it to $40

You can quibble with the numbers here, but these napkin math posts are closer to the truth than the "Carts cost $4, the price shouldn't jump $10" commentary.

 

[DeuceGamer]

You can quibble with the numbers here, but these napkin math posts are closer to the truth than the "Carts cost $4, the price shouldn't jump $10" commentary.

While the numbers may be made up as examples it's actually the first posts that make sense to me as I mentioned earlier and actually has me rethinking the situation.

I would still like to understand why this wasn't an issue for Vita but apparently is for Switch. I realize Switch carts may be more than Vita carts but Vita was actually cheaper in most cases than it's PS3 counterpart. Did Sony help with costs, are Switch carts really that much more expensive than Vita carts, combination of things, etc...

It's not a good position for Publishers to be in and if they are launching at higher prices (especially late), I wonder how successful they will be with the average consumer.

 

[Type40]

Makes sense, blank Gameboy Color carts cost $18 a piece to publishers in the late 90's.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Was this a problem with 3DS and it's game cards? I don't recall many games crossing the $40 mark.

 

[Shiggy]

Was this a problem with 3DS and it's game cards? I don't recall many games crossing the $40 mark.

Development costs on 3DS were much lower due to the lower hardware capabilities. You didn't need to create HD assets for example.

Quite a few lower budget digital games were more expensive at retail though.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Development costs on 3DS were much lower due to the lower hardware capabilities. You didn't need to create HD assets for example.

But cost wise wouldn't a port still be cheaper then a straight up original exclusive?

 

[Shiggy]

But cost wise wouldn't a port still be cheaper then a straight up original exclusive?

On 3DS? Or on Switch? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

 

[DeuceGamer]

On 3DS? Or on Switch? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

Since Rime is a late port would it cost more than an original 3DS games entire Dev costs?

Also, how was Vita able to be the cheaper version of the multiplat games it received with PS3/PS4?

 

[SmokedMeat]

On 3DS? Or on Switch? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

Many of 3DS's games were original titles developed solely for the platform. In response to your comment about 3DS development costing less, wouldn't it still be cheaper to produce a Switch multiplatform port opposed to an original 3DS title?

 

[The Hermit]

If thats the case I expect most smaller devs to just release digital.

And people complaining about Rime at least we are getting the damn game. Better than rocket league

 

[Shiggy]

Since Rime is a late port would it cost more than an original 3DS games entire Dev costs?

Also, how was Vita able to be the cheaper version of the multiplat games it received with PS3/PS4?

Depends on the 3DS game. But why would the port be cheaper?

The Vita got multiplatform games? I'm not familiar with the platform, but it probably had to do with different price expectations on mobile. Just as World of Goo will be more expensive on Switch than on Android.

Many of 3DS's games were original titles developed solely for the platform. In response to your comment about 3DS development costing less, wouldn't it still be cheaper to produce a Switch multiplatform port opposed to an original 3DS title?

I don't know about the porting costs but it also depends on the sales expectations. If you plan to sell 5k units you can share porting costs across fewer sales than when you sell 5 mio.

 

[cartman414]

Such a policy seems impossible to enforce in Europe where there is no suggested retail price. I call bullshit, especially since we know 3rd parties are free to do their own sales, which suggests they're free to set the pricing as they want.

I'm sure they have that policy internally, but I seriously doubt they have such a rule with 3rd parties.


Weight and dimensions? Both the cards and boxes are smaller (and probably lighter?) than blu ray discs and their cases, this (the dimensions) is something that saves money on distribution, not the other way around.

Flash/solid state memory has cost lots more than optical for ages.

 

[Azure Phoenix]

Vita games come on cartridges yet almost all new releases cost £24.99-£29.99 now (£10 less than 3DS games) and we all know those games aren't big sellers. I don't for one second buy the argument that higher manufacturing costs are the only reason Switch games cost £59.99, particularly when Nintendo have shown such ridiculous greed with accessory pricing at launch (eg. £25 for a fucking AC adapter).

 

[DeuceGamer]

Depends on the 3DS game. But why would the port be cheaper?

The Vita got multiplatform games? I'm not familiar with the platform, but it probably had to do with different price expectations on mobile. Just as World of Goo will be more expensive on Switch than on Android.




I don't know about the porting costs but it also depends on the sales expectations. If you plan to sell 5k units you can share porting costs across fewer sales than when you sell 5 mio.

Yea, the Vita received a few ports. A few examples would be Sonic Racing Transformed, World of Final Fantasy, Legend of Heroes, etc... I'm genuinely curious how it was possible for the multiplats on Vita to release at a lower price than the others while Switch apparently has to release at more or the Pub/Dev won't make any money.

 

[Shiggy]

Yea, the Vita received a few ports. A few examples would be Sonic Racing Transformed, World of Final Fantasy, Legend of Heroes, etc... I'm genuinely curious how it was possible for the multiplats on Vita to release at a lower price than the others while Switch apparently has to release at more or the Pub/Dev won't make any money.

Different publishers have different strategies. Bigger publishers can eat the costs more easily.

 

[LoveCake]

Is there a royalty or anything on the cards/carts, why doesn't Nintendo subsidies the cost of the cards/carts so they cost the publisher the same as a BluRay disc?

 

[cartman414]

I don't think the price difference is nearly that extreme. Weren't N64 carts $25 each to publishers? There is a reason the "greatest hits" equivalent was $39.99.

I think this is more like the Gamecube situation. Only there, a lot of devs seemed to lower audio or FMV bitrate to make games fit on one disc a lot of the time. Here, it is the mandatory equal pricing between retail and digital that has people who download games paying a price premium on physical costs they are not dealing with on a given title.

Gamecube still had optical media. Games cost no more to manufacture. Data space was the only difference as you said.

Regarding Vita vs. Switch game card cost, size would likely be a factor.

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

It's just greedy, if it costs more to make then increase the price by $5 max, not $10 there's no way it costs that much more.