‘If it’s the only place to play Mario, you buy it’: Former PlayStation boss reacts to $80 Nintendo games
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/if-its-the-only-place-to-play-mario-you-buy-it-former-playstation-boss-reacts-to-80-nintendo-games/Open linkView original on lemmy.world298
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I guess I don't play Mario then. It's a pretty simple concept.
I got a Wii for Christmas years ago. Never used it much. The last Nintendo console I bought was a game cube. You can easily live without Nintendo. They're definitely decent games. Just not for that price.
They do fill a "good for all ages" niche that not many other AAA games do nowadays. Which makes the exorbitant pricing especially strange.
You underestimate how many people literally cannot stop themselves from playing Mario. I'd hope it's mostly children begging their parents, but I have a feeling there's a decent amount of 30 year olds with disposable income and zero impulse control in there.
I'm going to try very hard not to be, but I'm definitely the type of person you're describing. That Nintendo direct had me drooling at the new Mario kart and donkey Kong games, and nothing hits like a zelda. Super mario wonder was a delight.
I only hope I can emulate this system relatively quickly. I am not a man of strong willpower.
Don’t feel bad for liking things. Your post kinda bums me out. Don’t let all this negative hype impact what will make you happy. If you can afford it. Do it. If you can’t then yeah don’t, but we as people are allowed to enjoy things.
Do you play many indie games? I feel like they've taken most of these formulas and really expanded on them, way more than Nintendo will do.
I do! Many of my favorites are indie games, I'd say more than not. But I guess there's some things that you can't do without a massive budget or many many years in development, because many nintendo core franchises just aren't beat in quality in my opinion, at least for some entries.
That's why I'm just not looking at these new games. It would be interesting to know how they're tackling an "open world" Mario Kart! But I already know it's too expensive for what I'll get out of it, so taking a look will only be bad for me in the long run.
Sounds like they’re doing a Forza Horizon kind of setup, where you drive around the open world to get from one structured race to another.
It’s kinda cool in that it keeps you in the world, but also annoying if you just wanna bang through races
The Switch was the generation where I really started to have adult money, and while a lot of the games I got were lower-priced indie titles, I did get pretty much all of the big 1st party titles.
There's a reasonable chance I get a Switch 2, but I'm not gonna be buying a lot of games over $70, and the ones I do will probably be when they go on sale for like, 10-15% off. I suspect I'll be buying fewer games this generation, and I'm okay with that.
Which is almost never.
It's uncommon, absolutely. But I bought Super Mario Odyssey around the third time I got an alert that it was on sale, for $50 or so. This took a couple years, so it's reasonably rare, but if the future looks like the past, it will happen
The fact that you have to have alerts to be able to get the games at a discount is pretty bad, but you're doing it the right way!
I introduced mine to undertale and other stuff like cuphead, old school sonic games and SNES emulators. We dont care about latest Mario's, but he does have odyssey.
Streamers.
Streamers and YouTubers are mostly who I blame for this. They are influencers who showcase the games and it makes their fans want to buy it.
I can't count how many times I've read online that so many people refuse to buy some game, then I go on YouTube and see like 5 YouTubers playing it day one, because they (or maybe even a fan) bought it.
me! I'm that guy pre ordering the switch as soon as I can lol
Its much better than that. There's plenty of Mario content to emulate.
Imagine going back to exclusivity with gaming consoles. PCs, and by extension, Steam won the console wars, and Nintendo is just trying its damnest to hold on to the last gasp of gaming exclusivity.
Yeah, Switch 1 was a nice break from playing games on my PC.
Except it's totally not. Maybe the only 100% legal in every single country way, but not the only way by half. Fuck Nintendo. Fuck $80+ for a game. And fuck the switch 2.
Fuck everyone! You cool Gabe.
What other legal way is there that doesn't require you to pay full price for the game?
Buying it used? That used to be the norm. Or getting it at the library for free.
I believe Nintendo (and other industry leaders) are going to find out that their old games are the going to be the competition to their new games. If it's too expensive and the old games are fun....there's enough of a backlog for people to play.
That and indies.
In the case of them rereleasing old games without doing a remaster, in Canada at least, it is legal to have a digital back up for any game you own, and running it in an emulator is legal.
(Edit: I'm implying here that classic games are $80 on the Nintendo store, they are not. Still legal to have digital backups of modern games, still legal to emulate them as long as you own a physical copy.)
But then you still have to buy the game.
Sure, but it wouldn't be $80 for most of them. (Edit: classic games on the Nintendo store are not $80, statement retracted. The general sentiment stands.)
Game deals is in New Westminster. Not necessarily great prices, but you can get Super Mario Cart for $60. And that's a proper reseller, definitely get a better deal for a loose cart online.....it doesn't even have to be working. Get a better deal on one that isn't functional, physical media degradation is one of the reasons why you're able to keep digital copies.
I thought we were talking about Switch 2 games?
You think they're going to sell repackaged SNES and N64 games for less than that?(Edit: incorrect, they are in fact less than $80) How bout switch 1 games? Those are "modern" so significantly cheaper, still legal to have a backup, still legal to emulate....and will be run in an emulator on the switch 2, no native backwards compatibility.
As for switch 2 games....just waiting for a while getting them 2nd hand means they'll be cheaper, if you can actually get a hardcopy, and all the things I just said still apply....
They do not sell SNES and N64 games for $80, no. You know those are on the NSO app already, right?
Look, if you wanna be mad that Mario Kart World is $80, that's fair to be mad at. But you don't gotta make up misinformation.
Being in receipt of a gift.
But yes, that pricing is bullshit.
If Mario is 100x more expensive than it needs to be, and there are millions of games that are just as good for a dime, you don't buy Mario.
Gamers, be it on console or PC, are dumb. Time has shown this over and over again. Horse armour, overpriced micro transactions, golden cage launchers, games as a service, the list goes on.
There will always be people who buy overpriced stuff or don't think about what will be in ten years.
Yeah, just prepare for 100 dollar games across the board WITH all of the shitty monetization at this point, gamers are going to buy their circus, consequences be damned.
I doubt it. Maybe Grand Theft Auto and Mario Kart can get away with charging more, but a lot of games asking $70 aren't finding many customers willing to pay that price right now.
Not to mention that other publishers will be watching this closely. If Nintendo gets away with it they will make this the new normal.
No offence to folks who like Mario games, but I don't personally feel good playing them. They have a working class protagonist who works to maintain monarchic status quo (fighting evil kingdom to defend another kingdom). Also the games encourage violence toward turtles. Not cool in my books.
Anyway, jokes aside, I'm not getting a Switch 2 anytime soon, will probably get a Steam Deck before that.
Everyone knows Mario is cool as f--k. But who knows what he's thinking? Who knows why he crushes turtles? And why do we think about him as fondly as we think of the mystical (nonexistent?) Dr Pepper? Perchance.
You can't just say "perchance."
Interested too see how piracy works for the switch 2. I will not buy one, as much as I enjoy Nintendo's games I cannot stand their software experience (UI, shovelware) or their eco system...how many peripherals do you need!?
I will buy a Switch 2 for however much it costs and when Nintendo first party titles start costing a whole week of work plus overtime I will still buy them. I will take out a mortgage for the eventual $49,999.99 console and $4,999.99 games. I will sell individual organs directly to Nintendo for whatever they want. I will singlehandedly commit genocide with my bare hands for Nintendo. I will gladly die for Nintendo. I live to serve my angel of salvation.
Sounds like someone thinks there is only one choice, buy or don't.
🏴☠️Harhar! 🏴☠️
And he’s right. Switch 2 and its $80 games will not only sell like hot cakes, it will set the standard for AAA publishers going forward. I fully expect to see $100 base games as standard before the end of the next generational cycle, and they’ll still have microtransactions and endless special editions.
And I'll continue to not buy them and support indie developers instead.
Me too. I’ve put more hours into Balatro and Tape To Tape than I care to admit…
Tape to tape? Oh that's new to me... Thanks friend
If you enjoy hockey and roguelites, it’s the game for you.
Dammit. I really didn't need another addicting game
Update: it's a great game. I'm not even a huge hockey fan, but it sucked me right in.
Lmao rougelite hockey. Eventually there will be a rougelite for everything 😂
I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure about it at first and it was kind of an impulse buy, but I was hooked after my first couple of runs. Great game for the Steam Deck too.
Sure. Unless you have a gaming friend group that gets interested in some new multiplayer game. Then you either buy it so you can play with them, or you don't play with them. If this continues for multiple games, you will slowly grow distant from your friend group.
Idgaf about online multiplayer, only local and singleplayer.
If the only thing keeping them as friends is playing all the latest ass-expensive games with them, they're not worth having as friends.
Most groups like this have anchor games everyone goes back to after the 3 hours playing the new game is done. You can still be friends with them.
That ought to be fine... it's like saying your friends aren't really your friends unless you play [x y or z]... In which case, I'm moving on to play what I enjoy.
Yup. Gamers, PC, console, mobile, all want their circus to escape reality, regardless of the cost short or long term.
I mean I keep hoping that gamers would have an epiphany and push back on these anti-consumer practices but I've seen nothing in the past twenty years, only desperate games defending being gouged.
The game market crashed before. It can do so again.
And I will bail to PC as my main way of playing games. I know I'm going to have to eventually, the way the industry is going.
Yeah, no. It is not the only place to play Mario. There’s emulation and Piracy. I’m quite certain skilled people will try to hack the Switch 2 and sooner or later there will be a Switch 2 emulation (although might take a while). €80-90 euro for one single game is nuts.
The only reason I would purchase a Switch 2 is when it is capable of being hacked.
10 year old mario kart 8 is still like 70 bucks with the dlc. Why are people so shocked?
Don't forget the other obvious option: we don't have to play mario. Also, there's a used game market with a ton of older games and Nintendo doesn't get a cent from that anymore.
Won't they, though? Even disregarding the option of piracy, while new games will be $70 or $80 or whatever at launch, they go down eventually and Steam pricing has always been better than console.
But... it's not the only place to play mario....
uh I fuckin wish I could play mario 64, sunshine, or galaxy on my current generation switch
You can...
Dat's da joke.
/r/whoosh for me then 😅🤣
me too, but it's about sailing the seven seas right?
I wasnt talking about that. Those games were released on switch in a bundle lol
However that was a limited time bundle which they no longer sell. Cause fucking smarts.
https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Super-Mario-3D-All-Stars-1832369.html
exactly this
They haven't sold those games on switch for awhile
Oh wait I can…
You can play Mario on old dumb phones using J2ME emulators.
I can't imagine trying to play games designed for controllers on a touch screen.
J2ME are old dumb non-touchscreen phones. My last one was Sony Ericsson j108i. And just now reading the Wikipedia entry, it was actually the last non-smartphone phone by Sony Ericsson! Nice.
Damn, the nostalgia is real. And the design still looks much better than smartphones which look pretty much all the same. Back then, phones had personality.
The Sony Ericsson phones in particular had very advanced J2ME support that I didn't see that much difference between that and my first smartphone (Nokia C5-03). Not that there weren't differences, the smartphone was definitely more advanced, but it wasn't that huge of a leap.
Give it 3 months after launch and there will be an emulator that won't be able to play games, but already have something like a black boot screen.
It would be funny if the reason Nintendo went after the Switch emulators because Switch 2 is the same, and you get playable games in days.
That was the prevailing theory. Why else go after emulators for a dying system?
Because being able to play your existing switch games with better performance is a big part of their sales pitch for this, but people were already starting to do that with the Steam Deck. At that point the comparison for the devices would look like:
Steam Deck: Cheaper, more ergonomic, can play more games, games cost less, games aren't locked to the console, no charge for better performance if you upgrade to new hardware, can play any game from consoles up to some ps3 through emulation
Nintendo: Better battery life, 120Hz HDR screen, has a new Mario Kart and Donkey Kong game
In every other way it would lose the comparison.
With the emulator crackdown, people don't perceive it that way, because they don't think of emulation as an option for the switch. (I mean, some do, but even Retro Games Corps isn't talking about that possibility anymore because of the strikes against his YouTube channel; they've greatly reduced the visibility of that as an option.)
For my part, I'm leaning towards sticking Moonlight on my existing Switch and just streaming from my desktop. It's not elegant, but you can't beat the price.
up to a lot of Switch, you mean.
That also! My sense is that for the switch it's basically only limited by emulator compatibility, but for ps3 and xbox one it's partially limited by the available cpu and gpu power. I may be mistaken about that though, I don't own a Deck and haven't tested this stuff myself.
It's been a couple years since I tried PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation, but when I did it on PC was the compatibility of the emulator rather than processing power that caused most game to not be playable. It ran Katamari Forever really well, so I'm hoping I can get it running on the Steam Deck, too!
Definitely worth a try!
Because you're Nintendo.
No thanks. I'll keep playing my old games.
You see, when a good or service is priced too high, it fails to sell. Economics, bitch!
You think so huh?
pulls on frock coatIs that right?
puts on tricorn hatI don't think Ralph agrees.
"You're goddamn right I don't! - Ralph the Parrot"He's 100% right. Gamers buy terrible overpriced content all the time. Basically all of my friends that play WoW bought a 90$ a mount because it has an auction house on it. That's more than the actual game costs.
Let's say Switch 2 emulation doesn't get good for a few years (which is totally possible, depending on how well Nintendo locked it up). He's saying that if it's the only way to play NEW Mario games, people will buy it at $80. He's right, millions will, but there are some like me who are huge Mario fans who will refuse to support such naked greed. Enough to matter to them? Probably not.
But I hope Switch 2 emulation does get to a playable state sooner rather than later.
Gar???
For everyone chiming in with piracy (which I support): Layden is more calling Nintendo fans "junkies" than advocating for 80$ prices. His message (even in the face of Ryan's LSG push) has always been "first party exclusivity sells consoles".
I’m not schocked by a game costing around 80$ as that’s already what a new game costs in my country.
I remember buying Final Fantasy 8 almost 30 years ago for above 90$ as a teenager.
I also kind of remember that NES and Super NES games were really expensive.
I’m not saying that I want the price of games to increase though and I think it’s weird that Nintendo is doing this when their games clearly aren’t the most expensive ones to create.
I know I won’t be buying a Switch 2and I think people should vote with their wallets.
Game pricing hasn’t changed much, sure. I paid $70 for n64 games in 1996. But volume sure has
FFVIII sold 6 million copies in its first year, a huge commercial success, and has sold 9.6 million lifetime Ever juggernaut games like Mario 64 - 12 million copies. FFVII - 12.6 million Pokemon red blue green combined - 30 million Madden 2007 - 7.7 million (interestingly EA does not release sales figures for modern madden games, probably because sports games seem to make far more money from micro transactions than sales. NBA 2k for example sells around 7m units a year but is one of the highest grossing franchises in gaming)
More recent games:
baldurs gate 3 sold 15 million copies Elden ring 20 million Pokémon sword and shield - 27 million Diablo 3 30 million The Witcher 3 50 million Skyrim 60 million Rdr2 70 million GTA 5 200 million
So when people cry “wahh, videogame prices need to rise because inflation” remember that they are stupid and overlook the very basic fact that 20-30 years ago gaming was a niche activity that got nowhere near the volume it gets today. Any single game selling 50 million copies in the 90s or early 2000s, let alone 200 fucking million, was an insane pipe dream
What you’re saying clearly makes sense and I hadn’t thought about the fact that the videogames market had grown so much.
Still I also think it’s important to take into account that 80$ in 1999 isn’t 80$ in 2025.
I’m clearly not rooting to get more expensive games, but I want everything to be taken into account.
Anyway, I ain’t gonna buy any Nintendo console when how little my kids have used the Switch compared with the Playstation.
How do you know how much it costs Nintendo to make these games? Do you have financial reports or something?
To be honest no, but I know that Mario Kart is making Nintendo a lot of money even if the game is really good and not the cheapest one.
I can’t blame Nintendo for trying to make more money, but don’t blame people for trying to spend less.
Have you seen the average Nintendo game? Unless they’re buying all of their developers solid gold keyboards to work on, I’m not seeing where the price justification comes from.
People will buy the Switch 2 and its games despite the high price because of the exclusive Nintendo games you can only play on that console.
Which is amusingly also what Xbox and PlayStation had before everything started coming to PC.
He's basically saying "suck it up, buttercup". They think people are going to have no choice but pay these prices, with all the crazy shit going on. Maybe the Switch 2 will be successful, but most of my adult video gamer friends have already said they are going to pass. Only the ones that still have small kids are considering it.
If you can only play mario on the switch, even if it costs a lot of money, people will generally buy the switch and the game.
Implying that people really like mario and that people are generally expected to do whatever it takes to play it.
He means “there are a ton of children with parents who cannot enforce boundaries and there are a ton of grown people who will make poor financial decisions”. Nintendo will exploit both
Hopefully someone will exploit Nintendo with a paper clip again
What part is unclear? You want to play Mario, you buy a Nintendo console.
Yup he's right. Nintendo can charge whatever they feel like, add dlcs and monthly sub payments and 90% of people will buy it all the same.
Needlessly absolute take. Yes, there's going to be parents, who'd rather pay extra than look into what other games they could give their kid, as well as loyal Mario fans, who will pay pretty much any price. But there's obviously also players who do weigh up their options based on price, and who will make different decisions when they have to decide between two titles, when one of them is cheaper. Especially with the additional invest for a new console and the more dire economic situation, I could see many players not buying into the Switch 2 at all.
If I was a sociopathic ceo I would release an update for the Switch 1 that bricks it.
If I have to pay $80 for Kirby Air Ride 2, I will pay $80 for Kirby Air Ride 2. I have waited 22 years for this game, there's never been anything else like it.
Good on ya, but you may want to see if your local library will have it as well.
I hope it has an accepter city trial mode
I can just play one of the many other very good jump'n'run games that do not cost that much money.
Unless a game is on a qualitative excellent level, as BotW and TotK were, I'm not paying 80 bucks for it.
TotK was not worth 80$.
Should’ve been an add on to BotW for 40$
Or if you never had either, both as a “complete edition” for 100$ is fine too.
Disagree. TotK was absolutely worth it's pricepoint. Not even going to argue about it, the game was phenomenal.
lol.
🏴☠️
Doug Bowser confirmed variable pricing in an interview. Not every game will be $80
they kinda did this with SWSH when it first came out, all the old fans were pissed, but the constant promotions by influencers dint help.
I have a solution, create a cheap knock-off & make it opensource. You guys can name the game-characters.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I honestly can't fathom calling Mario or Zelda games low effort on the developers part. It seems like a lot of time and care go into them, for the most part.
Your friendly reminder that Half Life was $49 in 1998, which is roughly $100 today.
Your friendly reminder that gaming back in 1998 was still not selling millions of copies as compared to now and revenue has for gaming has been rising significantly since.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/
Your friendly reminder that there were less than 1/10th of the people buying video games back then than there are now.
Also, Half-Life didn't have a BattlePass, Time Savers, and other microtransactions.
Neither does Mario.
Cool, now do the cost of everything else and compare then to now and you might have some idea of why $80 for a video game is a bitter pill to swallow.
Friendly reminder that games from 1998 were just games and didn’t have endless predatory mechanics designed to cripple the game in some way to extract money from you after you bought them too.
When I bought the switch I called it my $500 zelda machine.
I also have factorio now.
If a new mario, zelda, or factorio is available on switch 2, I'll buy one.
I am cringing in horror at how poorly my factories would run on a Switch. Do you find playing it to be an acceptable experience?
It's the only platform I have to play it on, and switch doesn't support the new space age expansion.
It did get many of the 2.0 updates, like the extended belt reader, free circuit wires, and all inserters are filters.
As far as acceptable, I love it. I'm sure I can't build the crazy 10k science per minute monstrosities I've seen on youtube, but I've never really run into an lag issues with the bases I've built.
I imagine it'll run much better on the Switch 2, given how well it runs on my Steam Deck, though I imagine that it would take a lot of adjustment to get used to using joystick controls versus the touchpad controls of the Steam Deck. Perhaps however the new 'mouse-like controls' work will be more helpful in that regard, but I can't imagine even that would match the precision of a trackpad.
Don't intend on supporting Nintendo's crazy price increases myself, and will only get a Switch 2 if a way to hardware mod it becomes available, but I think it's a bit ironic that the one non-first party game someone would specifically want to play on the Switch is also the one that not only never goes on sale, but also got a price increase.
And even with the increase it's still a freakin' bargain. Such a good game!
one summer back in 'the day' i was staying at a house that had a snes. guess what the one and only game we played all that summer was.
Factorio?