blacktout
Member
Note: All prices in this thread are in United States Dollars, and the goal of the poll is to guess what the game's MSRP will be in the US. I've noted as much in the poll's title. Nintendo's pricing can vary quite a bit by region, so I'm using the US as a consistent baseline. Don't come back to this thread in six months and try to claim bragging rights because you guessed correctly in Australian dollars.
Nintendo has recently started leaning hard into variable pricing, not only by introducing a $10 difference between their digital and physical titles, but also by releasing three consecutive Switch 2 games priced at less than the previously standard $69.99. And then, of course, there's the other extreme: They officially broke the seal on $80 games last year with Mario Kart World (as well as several Switch 2 Editions of OG Switch games). This has obviously spawned a lot of discourse, and I've seen a fair amount of disagreement on GAF and elsewhere about what Nintendo's new pricing strategy actually means: Did they realize they pushed the envelope too far and now they're walking it back? Are they pricing games more aggressively to make up for the looming Switch 2 hardware price increase? Is the new digital/physical split a secret price increase (somehow)?
It's easy to speculate and spin, but all this theorizing is empty if it can't be used to make a real, concrete prediction about future pricing. The next mainline 3D Mario is an obvious candidate for this exercise in putting yourmoney reputation where your mouth is: it's likely to be Nintendo's next big "AAA" title, with rumors from "reputable" leakers suggesting it's currently planned for a 2027 release. If this is true, it could potentially be released as early as Nintendo's (currently hypothetical) June Direct, which is why I'm creating this thread now, just in case. (Sure Nintendo probably won't announce pricing for a Holiday 2027 title this soon, but if I sit on this thread for a few months and it turns out to be a March release, then I might miss my opportunity.)
Here's a little more context on the options, for those who aren't as pathologically obsessed with dumb shit like this as I am:
Less than $49.99 (Digital) / $59.99 (Physical): So probably $39.99 (digital), I guess. The last game Nintendo released at this price point was Metroid Prime Remastered. There's almost no chance Nintendo will sell a new AAA Switch 2 title for this price, but I had to include it as an option for people who believe that something truly unforeseen is going to happen to the video game market in the next year or two. (Or those who think the game is years away and there's going to be wild economic upheaval between now and then.)
$49.99 (Digital) / $59.99 (Physical): This is the Star Fox/Splatoon Raiders price point. Seems to be Nintendo's new "bargain" price, replacing the $49.99 (flat) price point from the OG Switch era, which was used for games like Warioware and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake.
$59.99 (Digital) / $69.99 (Physical): This is what Nintendo charged for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. It's probably Nintendo's new standard price point, essentially the $70 they charged for games like Donkey Bananza and Kirby Air Riders minus a $10 digital discount, though I've seen some argue that this is actually another bargain pricing tier and we haven't seen Nintendo's true new standard yet.
$69.99 (Digital) / $79.99 (Physical): We haven't seen a game with this exact price point yet. I believe that this would be the replacement for the $80 Mario Kart World "premium" pricing tier, but that's pure speculation until a game is actually released with this price.
$79.99 (Digital) / $89.99 (Physical): This one's for the "secret price increase" crowd. If 3D Mario is listed for this price, then it will officially have replaced Mario Kart World as the new (US) pricing high water mark.
More than $79.99 (Digital) / $89.99 (Physical): This one's for the true doomers. It's kind of like the "Less than $49.99" option, in that it probably implies that something has fundamentally changed about video game pricing in general or the economy more broadly.
So what do you think? Personally, I'm on team $69.99 (Digital) / $79.99 (Physical), because I think that's going to be Nintendo's new premium price point, and I think they probably view 3D Mario as being in the same category as MKW in terms of prestige and perceived value.
Edit: Somehow I fucked up the price points in the body of this post. They've been corrected. Poll is unaffected.
Nintendo has recently started leaning hard into variable pricing, not only by introducing a $10 difference between their digital and physical titles, but also by releasing three consecutive Switch 2 games priced at less than the previously standard $69.99. And then, of course, there's the other extreme: They officially broke the seal on $80 games last year with Mario Kart World (as well as several Switch 2 Editions of OG Switch games). This has obviously spawned a lot of discourse, and I've seen a fair amount of disagreement on GAF and elsewhere about what Nintendo's new pricing strategy actually means: Did they realize they pushed the envelope too far and now they're walking it back? Are they pricing games more aggressively to make up for the looming Switch 2 hardware price increase? Is the new digital/physical split a secret price increase (somehow)?
It's easy to speculate and spin, but all this theorizing is empty if it can't be used to make a real, concrete prediction about future pricing. The next mainline 3D Mario is an obvious candidate for this exercise in putting your
Here's a little more context on the options, for those who aren't as pathologically obsessed with dumb shit like this as I am:
Less than $49.99 (Digital) / $59.99 (Physical): So probably $39.99 (digital), I guess. The last game Nintendo released at this price point was Metroid Prime Remastered. There's almost no chance Nintendo will sell a new AAA Switch 2 title for this price, but I had to include it as an option for people who believe that something truly unforeseen is going to happen to the video game market in the next year or two. (Or those who think the game is years away and there's going to be wild economic upheaval between now and then.)
$49.99 (Digital) / $59.99 (Physical): This is the Star Fox/Splatoon Raiders price point. Seems to be Nintendo's new "bargain" price, replacing the $49.99 (flat) price point from the OG Switch era, which was used for games like Warioware and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake.
$59.99 (Digital) / $69.99 (Physical): This is what Nintendo charged for Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. It's probably Nintendo's new standard price point, essentially the $70 they charged for games like Donkey Bananza and Kirby Air Riders minus a $10 digital discount, though I've seen some argue that this is actually another bargain pricing tier and we haven't seen Nintendo's true new standard yet.
$69.99 (Digital) / $79.99 (Physical): We haven't seen a game with this exact price point yet. I believe that this would be the replacement for the $80 Mario Kart World "premium" pricing tier, but that's pure speculation until a game is actually released with this price.
$79.99 (Digital) / $89.99 (Physical): This one's for the "secret price increase" crowd. If 3D Mario is listed for this price, then it will officially have replaced Mario Kart World as the new (US) pricing high water mark.
More than $79.99 (Digital) / $89.99 (Physical): This one's for the true doomers. It's kind of like the "Less than $49.99" option, in that it probably implies that something has fundamentally changed about video game pricing in general or the economy more broadly.
So what do you think? Personally, I'm on team $69.99 (Digital) / $79.99 (Physical), because I think that's going to be Nintendo's new premium price point, and I think they probably view 3D Mario as being in the same category as MKW in terms of prestige and perceived value.
Edit: Somehow I fucked up the price points in the body of this post. They've been corrected. Poll is unaffected.
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