First-party Switch 2 games—including re-releases—all run either $70 or $80

Nintendo's Switch 2 presentation gave us pricing for the console ($449 to start) and Nintendo's product pages have given us pricing information for accessories ($80 for a Pro Controller, $90 for another pair of Joy-Cons, and $110 for a replacement dock, sheesh). But what Nintendo didn't mention during the presentation was game pricing, either for standalone Switch 2 titles or the Switch 2 Edition upgrades for existing Switch games. Nintendo announced via its website after the presentation that Mario Kart World, the console's flagship launch title, will cost $50 when you buy a digital copy as part of a Switch 2 bundle. But the game will cost $80 when you buy it on its own, $30 more than the pack-in version and $20 more than the usual $60 price for first-party Switch games. Pre-order listings at US retailers that have gone live since this morning also list several $80 games—we'll use Wal-Mart's as an example. The upgraded Switch 2 Editions for a trio of Switch games—2024's Super Mario Party Jamboree, 2023's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and 2022's Kirby and the Forgotten Land—are all going for $80, the same as Mario Kart World. That doesn't mean that $80 is the starting price for all Switch 2 games. Donkey Kong Bananza, slated for a near-launch July 17 release, has a $69.99 MSRP, which is more in line with the $70 default for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S games. Wal-Mart also lists the Switch 2 Edition of 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for $70. Nintendo hasn't explained what makes a $70 game worth $70 or an $80 game worth $80. Mario Kart World does have more robust online play that will cost money to support long-term, and the three Switch 2 re-releases are all for relatively recent games. But Donkey Kong is a brand-new first-party release that shares little in common with Breath of the Wild, a Switch launch title from eight years ago (and one that began life as a Wii U game, to boot). Inflation alone would be enough to justify these price increases—a $60 game in 2017 could cost $78 now (though that's using the overall rate of inflation, and prices have risen more steeply in some corners of the economy than others). But with a new console comes the potential for better and more detailed graphics, and those can take more money to produce, too. Not all game releases will follow Nintendo's pricing formula. The Switch 2 release of Street Fighter 6 Year 1-2 Fighters Edition retails for $60, and Square Enix's remastered Bravely Default is going for $40, the exact same price the 3DS version launched for over a decade ago.

One possible complicating factor for those games? While they're physical releases, they use Nintendo's new Game-Key Card format, which attempts to split the difference between true physical copies of a game and download codes. Each cartridge includes a key for the game, but no actual game content—the game itself is downloaded to your system at first launch. But despite holding no game content, the key card must be inserted each time you launch the game, just like any other physical cartridge. These cards will presumably be freely shareable and sellable just like regular physical Switch releases, but because they hold no actual game data, they're cheaper to manufacture. It's possible that some of these savings are being passed on to the consumer, though we'll need to see more examples to know for sure.

What about Switch 2 Edition upgrades?

The big question mark is how expensive the Switch 2 Edition game upgrades will be for Switch games you already own, and what the price gap (if any) will be between games like Metroid Prime 4 or Pokémon Legends: Z-A that are going to launch on both the original Switch and the Switch 2. But we can infer from Mario Kart and Donkey Kong that the pricing for these Switch 2 upgrades will most likely be somewhere in the $10 to $20 range—the difference between the $60 price of most first-party Switch releases and the $70-to-$80 price for the Switch 2 Editions currently listed at Wal-Mart. Sony charges a similar $10 fee to upgrade from the PS4 to the PS5 editions of games that will run on both consoles. If you can find copies of the original Switch games for less than $60, that could mean saving a bit of money on the Switch 2 Edition, relative to Nintendo's $70 and $80 retail prices. Nintendo will also use some Switch 2 Edition upgrades as a carrot to entice people to the more expensive $50-per-year tier of the Nintendo Switch Online service. The company has already announced that the upgrade packs for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will be offered for free to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers. The list of extra benefits for that service now includes additional emulated consoles (Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and now Gamecube) and paid DLC for both Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8. This story was updated at 7:30pm on April 2nd to add more pricing information from US retailers about other early Switch 2 games.