Nintendo exec explains $80 price of Mario Kart World, what it means for Switch 2 games
As you may have heard, Nintendo showed off a bunch of Switch 2 stuff this week. As you may have also heard, not everyone is as hyped about it as you might expect because of pricing concerns.
For one, the console itself starts at $450...for now. On Friday morning, Nintendo announced that U.S. pre-orders for the console have been delayed indefinitely due to concerns over "tariffs and evolving market conditions." A price hike is not necessarily guaranteed, but it's certainly on the table. At the very least, though, $450 is not far off from what people expected from Switch 2's hardware. The more surprising problem is in game pricing, specifically with the flagship launch title, Mario Kart World, selling for a standalone price of $80.
We only just recently entered territory where some big-budget games retail for $70, and now Nintendo is trying to charge $80 for a non-deluxe edition of a game. I got to talk to Nintendo of America VP of Player & Product Experience Bill Trinen after the Switch 2 premiere, and, in a wide-ranging interview, he gave me some insight as to why Mario Kart costs as much as it does.
"Mario Kart is a tremendous, tremendous amount of content," Trinen said. "The way that world is so interconnected...I can literally drive across the continent. I'm sometimes racing through six different tracks on something like Knockout Tour, and racing in between them, and it's all seamless and interconnected."
Trinen also pointed out that there is a separate Nintendo Direct livestream for Mario Kart on April 17 at 9 a.m. ET that will shed more light on what is included in the game. Even if you accept the premise that there is $80 worth of content in the game (and there very well may be), it will still undoubtedly be a difficult pill to swallow for consumers who have been used to a $60 price point for Nintendo games for more than a decade. And while it's true that video game prices were often much higher than that in the 1990s, it also wasn't possible to dump 2,000 hours into Fortnite for free back then.
Another thing Trinen mentioned is that there is a $500 bundle of the Switch 2 console with Mario Kart World, which would amount to $30 in savings if the price holds. Perhaps the more significant concern is whether or not future first-party Nintendo Switch 2 games will cost $80. One piece of information I didn't have in front of me during the interview is that some of the upgraded "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" versions of older Switch games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, will also retail for $80 if you don't already own the Switch version. If you do, you must purchase a substantially cheaper "upgrade pack."
Having said that, the other flagship early Switch 2 title, Donkey Kong: Bananza, is a relatively more reasonable $70. According to Trinen, some titles being $80 is not necessarily a sign that many others will be, and Nintendo is taking it on a case-by-case basis. He also cited Tears of the Kingdom launching for $70, while subsequent Switch games stayed at $60.
"The approach that we take is we look at what the game is, what the content is, what the experience is, and then we say, 'What is the value of that?'" Trinen said. "On the flip side, we will see other games that might not be at the same price as Mario Kart."
Lastly, Trinen pointed out that some people might be more willing to fork over $80 once they get their hands on Mario Kart World, perhaps at one of the many public hands-on events Nintendo is holding globally in the coming months.
"The other thing is you have a lot of people that haven't been able to go hands-on with the games here today, so there's an initial reaction," Trinen said. "But what we're seeing is people who are...playing the games here today are coming away really impressed with the quality of the value offered there."
Again, we will see how true that is once these things are on store shelves — if that happens when it's supposed to happen on June 5, anyway.