Nintendo’s recent pricing strategy for Switch 2 games is beginning to make more and more players feel a very familiar atmosphere. That feeling of “it doesn’t seem to have increased much, but everything slowly adds up and becomes more and more expensive.”
The new “Star Fox” Switch 2 game that has just been officially announced has now confirmed its price, and the result is: the digital version is indeed cheaper, but if you want to buy a physical cartridge, you have to pay more.
“Star Fox” digital version is $49.99, physical version is $59.99
According to the latest information on the Nintendo Store, the digital version of “Star Fox” is priced at $49.99, while the physical version is $59.99.
After conversion, the digital version is approximately NT$1,620, HKD390, and RM236; the physical version is approximately NT$1,950, HKD468, and RM283.
Although even the physical version is still lower than the $70 price band now common for many first-party games, the problem is that players now have to spend an extra $10 to buy the actual cartridge version.
Nintendo has actually started to promote a dual price system for a long time
In fact, this is not the first time Nintendo has done this.
“Yoshi and the Mysterious Book” has adopted a similar model earlier, and the physical version is more expensive than the digital version.
Now it seems that Nintendo is slowly turning this “digital discount, physical price increase” model into the new normal.
And this is not long after the price increase of the Switch 2 console was announced.
When players open Nintendo News recently, they probably feel like “Why do we need to add more money?”
At least Star Fox isn’t a Game-Key Card
But this time there is one thing that at least allows many players to breathe a little easier.
Nintendo has confirmed that first-party Switch 2 games will not use Game-Key Cards. In other words, the physical version of “Star Fox” is not a fake physical model that “only has download rights in the box.”
After players purchase the physical version, they will indeed get the complete game cartridge.
After all, many players have begun to have a strong dislike for Game-Key Card, thinking that it is just a download code packaged into a physical product.
To a certain extent, when players now buy physical games, they are actually buying more than just collecting them, but are also obsessed with “really owning the game” itself.
Switch 2 physical and digital price gap may become increasingly common
The report also mentioned that it is still unclear whether Nintendo will fully implement this dual price system, but judging from recent Switch 2 games, this situation has indeed begun to become more and more common.
For Nintendo, the digital version can save manufacturing, logistics and retail costs, and the lower price is actually reasonable.
But for many old players, when the physical version starts to become a “more expensive full version”, the feeling will still be a bit subtle.
In particular, a high proportion of Nintendo players prefer to collect physical cartridges.
The “Star Fox” series may have more than one new game
In addition to price information, the report also mentioned again that there are still recent rumors that there may be two new “Star Fox” games in development.
Although another work has not yet been officially confirmed, as many previous revelations have come true, the outside world has begun to think that the “Star Fox” series may really be ready to be resurrected.