Nintendo is hosting one of its Nintendo Direct online events. This should be an opportunity for the manufacturer to increase the price of its games to 80 euros. A strategy increase at a convenient time.
After Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo’s turn would have come. The successful Nintendo Switch maker is the latest of the three not yet to formalize a price hike for its games. The first beams agree towards an official increase which would take place today, on the occasion of the next Nintendo Direct.
As in the case of Xbox, Nintendo would have simply waited until the release of a highly anticipated game.
80 euros for the next The Legend of Zelda?
A listing on the very official Nintendo eShop in the United States, since deleted, as well as the cessation of pre-orders at GameStop, Best Buy and Amazon suggests that the starting price would have been underestimated for The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom.
Nintendo’s next blockbuster slated for release on May 12, 2023 would be the company’s first game to retail for $69.99 in the United States compared to the usual $59.99. In France, this would translate to a price of 79.99 euros instead of 69.99 euros.
An announcement on the sidelines of the Nintendo Direct
The coincidence with Nintendo’s next event seems too good. The manufacturer has indeed announced one of its famous Nintendo Direct for this Wednesday, February 8 from 11 p.m. It would be an opportunity to discover the games expected for the first half of the year, including the famous next game Zelda.
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If we can hardly imagine Nintendo formalizing the price of its new title during the event, we can at least expect a formal opening of pre-orders, which should make it possible to confirm this new price list.
The right time
We may be surprised to see that Nintendo did not want to wait for its next generation console to justify this price increase. Indeed, the rest of the market has favored the switch to the PS5 generation to pass the pill, arguing for an increase in development costs. It should be remembered that the price of 70 euros for a new big-budget game is a price that was put in place when the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 was launched in 2007, more than 15 years ago.
Taking only the inflation rate into account, an updated price of 70 euros in 2023 should give close to 90 euros. And this without taking into account the increase in development costs between a game from 2007 and a game from 2023. However, the video game market has also been a market that has been growing very rapidly since 2007 with many new revenue levers. A Zelda game of the time did not offer DLC when the episode did Breath Of The Wild.
What about other Nintendo games?
By being sold for 70 euros, the game The Legend of Zelda Breath of The Wild was already an exception in the manufacturer’s catalog. Most of its games are rather marketed at 60 euros or less, as is the case for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Pokémon Scarlet & Pokémon Purple. However, we can imagine that if Nintendo increases the price of its flagship game, the rest of the catalog could follow depending on the releases. The manufacturer would leave room to market its next Mario Kart or Pokémon at 70 euros.
However, what determines the commercial price of a game is also the price at which it can properly sell. Given the success of the previous episode and its game console, The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom seems the ideal candidate to test a price increase. For its part, Microsoft has made this change relate to the release of Redfallalso scheduled for May, but this is the launch of Starfield who should act as a justice of the peace.
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