Zelda Tears of the Kingdom at €80 and Nintendo games at the same price as PS5 games?

Game News Zelda Tears of the Kingdom at €80 and Nintendo games at the same price as PS5 games?

If the Nintendo Switch is technically inferior to other home consoles on the market, we can however recognize a pricing policy in line with this difference, compared to the prices charged by Microsoft and especially sony. In effect, almost all of the games of the hybrid console of nintendo is marketed at the recommended retail price of €59.99, when these titles are not available at €44.99 regularly for pre-order (or even constantly) on many merchant sites. However, this could perhaps change, and not in a good way for fans of the brand’s cult licenses…

A manufacturer historically cheaper than the others

Remember, more than 15 years ago, Sony and Microsoft brought video games into the HD era with the seventh generation of consoles, and games distributed on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were then offered at €69.99 instead of the “historic” price of €59.99 who was thought to be irremovable since the changeover to the euro on January 1, 2002. This was without counting on the technological evolution and the increasingly high production costs of games, but Nintendo did not care. I have to say that the Wii was a machine with performance comparable to its predecessor, the GameCubeas well as sixth-generation competitors (there playstation2 and the Xbox), and that there was no real reason to increase the price of its games.

However, even joining the bandwagon of high definition many years later (at the end of 2012 with the Wii U), Nintendo only very rarely offered games at €69.99, and this policy continued on Switch. . Of course, the machine’s biggest games, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have been applied this tariff, but there are still rare exceptions on a console where most “in-house” productions remain distributed at the same price as Game Cube games! A sum unchanged until the beginning of the year 2023, since observed on Fire Emblem Engage for example, but also in force on obvious bestsellers like Pokémon Scarlet / Violet, also offered at € 59.99 and whose commercial success is such that one wonders if it would have changed anything if it had been sold for €10 more…

80€, the new price of modern video games

However, as the Switch approaches the end of its life (it’s not taking a big risk to say this after almost 6 full years of operation), the situation could finally change. At the end of 2020, Sony angered gamers by announcing that major PlayStation 5 titles would retail for €79.99. a new pricing policy initially not adopted by Microsoft but which will end up being in force at the American manufacturer during the course of the year for Xbox Series titles. For its part, the PC is still resisting, although some titles are exceptions – we will think in particular of Forspoken, the first big title of 2023 by Square-Enix strangely sold at the same price on Steam, which had not made everyone happy. On the Microsoft side, we know in particular that Redfall will also be offered at € 79.99.

And Nintendo in all this, will you tell me? Until today, you will agree, it seemed highly unlikely to see Switch games marketed at €79.99, for two fairly obvious reasons. First, the recommended retail price of the majority of titles from the Japanese publisher still seems to be €59.99, even for its very large productions (like Pokémon, see above). But above all, from a simple technological point of view, there’s really no reason to sell Switch games for the same price as their PS5 counterparts, the difference in performance and ambition of the two manufacturers being even higher than when the Nintendo console rubbed shoulders with the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.

Tears of the Kingdom at 80€ like PS5 games?

Where things look set to change is that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been spotted pre-ordering for $10 higher than usual on the US eShop. Admittedly, across the Atlantic, said rate is $69.99, which can be vulgarly compared to our usual €69.99, except that this is not the usual policy. from Nintendo of America. Indeed, games like Breath of the Wild or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate are offered at $59.99 on the store American, unlike the 69.99€ of its European version. Thus, this raises the question of the price at which Tears of the Kingdom will actually be offered in Europe: could this unprecedented increase lead to a sale at €79.99 for the future episode of The Legend of Zelda, news of which is expected this evening in the Nintendo Direct which should put the game at the center of concerns?

In the meantime, Nintendo of America quickly removed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom fare from its eShop page, and on our side, Nintendo Europe does not reveal any prices on the official page of the game on “our” eShop, leaving room for doubt. Was it a pricing error? Nothing is less certain since the marketplaces major distributors of the game in the United States (Amazon, Best Buy and GameStop) have withdrawn the possibility of pre-ordering Nintendo’s future hit. With the Nintendo Direct approaching, there’s a lot going on around Tears of the Kingdom, including possible leaks about its storyline and gameplay, but it’s not impossible that its price is part of the debate. In any case, we should soon find out more about the future official price of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and if the latter can have an impact on Nintendo’s policy regarding the price of its productions first party.

… thus, priced briefly at $69.99 on the American eShop, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom raises questions.

And you, would you buy Nintendo games if they were now sold at €79.99? Do not hesitate to let us know your opinion on this subject (to say the least thorny) in the comments of this news!