Switch 2 Games Are More Expensive, Tariffs Might Not Be the Reason Why

Wednesday's reveal of the Switch 2 had a lot of news from Nintendo about its successor to the Switch. One shocking bit, though, was the high price of its games. There is a lot of confusion about that, especially with news of President Donald Trump's increased tariffs on many trading partner countries, including Japan. 

After the Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo published full details for the upcoming console and games on its website. The price of Mario Kart World shocked gamers and led to some disdain, as the $80 MSRP was $10 more than what most new games cost today. This led many to wonder if this was a new normal for game prices, if it was related to Trump's tariffs or if Nintendo was just being greedy. The answer, however, might be something completely different. 

Watch this: Switch 2 Detailed: What You Need to Know

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To start, some details need to be cleared up. Some people have posted on social media that the price of Nintendo's Switch 2 games, at least in the US, will be $90. That is incorrect, as of right now. 

One X user posted Switch 2 EU prices for Mario Kart World, which start at 80 euros for a digital version and 90 euros for the physical copy. Typically, US and EU games match in price, which caused some to assume that this pricing would be the case for the US. However, retailers have already posted their Switch 2 game prices, and Nintendo-published games have a price of $80.

The price of Switch 2 games made by Nintendo.

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As for Trump's tariffs, that is unlikely to be a driver of this price bump. Tariffs are not applied to digital goods, and as of the time when the prices were published, there were no tariffs on Japan. 

With that cleared up, the question is, "Why are Nintendo games on the Switch 2 so expensive?" One likely reason is game storage. 

The Switch 2 uses what Nintendo calls game-key cards, which are Switch 2 cartridges that don't have all the game data on the cartridge itself. This helps save on production costs as storage is expensive. The original Switch cartridges went up to 32GB of storage, which doesn't seem like a lot these days with some games taking up 100GB or more of storage, but this is for the original Switch. Only a few games like The Witcher 3 went above 32GB because the graphics for the Switch weren't on the high-end like with a PC, PS5 or Xbox Series console, where a Witcher 3 install size starts at 50GB. 

Switch 2 games are going to be bigger in size, there is little doubt about it. CD Projekt Red confirmed it was going to put its Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on one 64GB cartridge, and it's likely that there will be other games to surpass that 64GB. With the max size of the cartridge doubling in size, it adds to the price of the physical card, as not only does storage have to be bigger, but they will need to transfer data faster. That can get more expensive for physical copies, unlike optical discs, which are still the same price whether it has 20GB or 100GB on the disc. 

This leads to a dilemma for publishers: Put the entire game on the physical card and sell it at a loss, increase the price of the physical copy with the full game on it, or use the game-key card to have a card with minimal storage, requiring gamers to download the entire game.

It appears that Nintendo went with door number 2. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, knowing Nintendo. The company rarely puts its own products on sale. Anyone who wants to save money on games knows that Nintendo will rarely bring the price down of its own games. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for example, is eight years old and is still full price on Nintendo's website. 

According to an industry analyst from Niko Partner, this new pricing could be the new normal in a couple of years when dealing with physical cartridges.

"While there has been some sticker shock regarding the price of games increasing from $60 to $70 or $80, these price points are set to become industry standard over the next two years, especially so for Nintendo first-party games," Niko Partners said in a post released on Wednesday. "One reason for the higher price is the increased cost of the new and faster Game Cards themselves, with higher capacities being more expensive to manufacture than a PS5 Blu-ray disc."

Nintendo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the higher price of its games. 

That said, this doesn't explain the lower price of Donkey Kong Bananza, which comes out in July. That is listed on Nintendo's site as a $70 game. This could mean the game isn't using a larger storage card, but that can't be said for sure until the game comes out. It's unclear how things will change in the future