Nintendo is raising prices of Switch 2 game cartridges starting in May - Ars Technica

Update, March 26, 2:45pm ET: Nintendo has released a clarifying statement on its announcement from yesterday, suggesting that it’s actually lowering prices of digital games rather than raising the prices of physical ones. The statement, as reported by IGN, is as follows:

“The cost of physical games is not going up. This means that when Nintendo sells digital versions of Nintendo published games exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2 to consumers in the U.S., those prices will have an MSRP that is lower than their physical counterparts. Retail partners set their own prices for physical and digital games, and pricing for each title may vary.”

Whether prices are being “raised” or “lowered” depends on your point of view; the upcoming Yoshi game will cost $60 for a digital copy, which up until last year was the price that Nintendo charged for most of its first-party Switch 1 titles. But it is true that $60 is $10 less than the digital versions of recent Switch 2 first-party releases like Donkey Kong Bananza or Kirby Air Riders (to date, Nintendo has charged $70 or $80 for new Switch 2 games, but hasn’t said what makes a $70 game a $70 game or an $80 game an $80 game).

Regardless, we’ve updated the headline to the piece to reflect Nintendo’s clarification. The body of the article has only been updated to clarify that physical and digital pricing for previously-released games has not been changed, at least not as of this writing.

Original story: The downloadable versions of Nintendo’s first-party Switch games have always cost the same amount to buy, despite the costs of manufacturing and shipping physical releases. This was still true when the Switch 2 launched last year, despite persistent rumors and misinformation to the contrary.

But that’s finally, definitively changing later this year. Nintendo announced today that beginning in May and for new game releases going forward, the physical releases of new Switch 2-exclusive first-party games will cost more than the digital versions of the same game. That will start with the May 21 release of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, which will cost $60 in Nintendo’s online store but $70 for a physical copy.

“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,” reads the company’s brief announcement about the change. Nintendo notes that retailers are free to charge what they want for physical and digital games, but aside from sales or other promotions most tend to follow Nintendo’s guidance on pricing.

At least for now, it doesn’t seem like this change will affect the physical or digital copies of any Switch 2 games that have already been released—first-party releases tend to go for either $70 or $80, depending on the game. Nintendo didn’t say whether its new physical-game tax would always be a flat $10, or if the price would differ based on the price of the base game. It’s also not clear whether or how this will affect any future physical “Nintendo Switch 2 Edition” releases, which package a copy of the Switch 1-compatible base game with a $10 or $20 Switch 2-exclusive DLC add-on.

The Switch 2’s physical game releases have already caused some consternation among both developers and buyers who prefer the physical copies of games. The Game-Key Card system allows Nintendo and third-party developers to ship physical game cards that don’t actually have games on them—they allow the console they’re inserted into to download the digital copy of the game, and launching that digital game still requires the physical Game-Key Card to be inserted into the console. They do retain some of the benefits of physical games; Game-Key cards can be freely lent or resold, for example, and aren’t tied to a particular console or Nintendo Account. But they don’t save you any console storage space like “real” physical games do, and you’ve still got to get up and change the cartridge every time you want to play something else.