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Discussion What Nintendo Switch first party game is worth more than $70 to you?

Generally I'll pay the higher price for games that I 100% know will give me crazy amounts of playtime, so anything over 100 hours, which for me has been:
  • Fire Emblem Three Houses
  • Pokemon Sword/Shield
  • Pokemon Scarlet/Violet
  • Super Smash Bros Ultimate

I've gotten more than 100 out of both Animal Crossing New Horizons and Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity too but wouldn't have paid that much at launch for them.

Does NSO count? I'm happy to pay the AU$70/year sub because my wife has played Dr Mario 64 for more than 130 hours, Pac-Man 99 for 110 and Tetris 99 for 120.
 
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I think the idea that no games are worth $70 is ridiculous. Game prices should be way higher than they are accounting to 1. inflation in general and 2. how much longer they take to make/how much more expensive they are to make. It is an absolute miracle they are still at $60 and only just now have started to go to $70. There's a reason MTX exist. It isn't just pure greed. It's also that games are so complex now they're working on them for 3, 4, 5 years. Maybe longer. If you have a stinker, you just lost tens of millions of dollars if your game is a one-time purchase.

I'm sorry--today, I do not understand how good games aren't worth $70. We paid $40-$50 when I was a kid 25 years ago. Adjusted for inflation, those games are more expensive now and were not nearly as complex, time-consuming, or resource intensive. Back then, games were super long when they hit 20 hours, now people get angry when these [much more complex] games don't reach 20 hours. I think $70 is more than fair today.


I saw this argument before and I saw some counter-arguments, I don’t think it’s that simple
  • the U$60 is a totally arbitrary number to begin with, it’s just a number people got used to, with no relation with actual cost-per-unit, in fact you frequently see games getting heavy discounts to way below this price
  • Digital games are cheaper to distribute than physical media but still have price parity with physical games
  • There’s more people buying games today than before so it’s not like the revenue adjusted by inflation went down
  • Microtransactions won’t go away just by making the base game more expensive, companies will have both prices increases and monetization

So while more aggressive monetization may be partially related to ballooning costs, it’s not the full story, specially with lots of game companies being publicly traded so they have to give more and more money to shareholders

And weirdly, the search for profit increase sometimes may end up doing the opposite, I saw on a recent Jim-Stephanie Sterling’s video that Square Enix would have been profitable in some past fiscal years if they had only released their traditional single-player games. Marvel’s Avengers (one of those “live-service” types of games) was their main source of losses
 
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I don't believe that games should be above $60. Gun to my head, however, I would pay more than that if I had to for an embarrassing number of first party games, though. Nintendo's output on the Switch has been ridiculously good with just a few exceptions.
 
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I don't have an issue with $60 or even $70 first party games. What I don't like is that Nintendo gives that same price to games of all calibers. Like imagine paying as much for Super Mario Strikers as you did for BOTW. Or paying full price for full price Wii U ports with barely any additions? For me the only Wii U port worth its price is Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury.

If we had to pay $80 for TOTK and $20 for the next Mario Golf I don't think anyone would be complaining.
 
I think the spirit of the thread isn't that we're letting ourselves get suckered into spending more money, just that which games had a lot of bang for the buck. I'm definitely not advocating for games to become more expensive.
That’s how I’m taking it as well.

With that context in mind here is my personal list:
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Super Mario Odyssey
Splatoon 2 & 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 & 3
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Wanted to limit it to just ten games as each of these provided at least 100 hours of enjoyment (much more in the case of BotW, Animal Crossing, and Splatoon, a little less for Odyssey and FE) and I really consider them to be the cream of the crop of the Switch library that also offer the best value.

Some honorable mentions along the same lines include Monster Hunter Rise, Octopath Traveler, and Pokémon Legends Arceus.
 
I would easily pay close to $150 for the following franchises:

3D Mario, Zelda, Smash, Splatoon, F-Zero, Metroid, Kid Icarus

Zelda and Smash in particular could probably get away with a $500 tag based on the level of enjoyment and hours I make out of them.
 
Only Smash for me. I'm kind of embarrased by the amount of hours of my life I have spent in this game since day one.
 
All 3 Xenoblade games
Smash Ultimate
BOTW
Mario Odyssey
Astral Chain
Bayonetta 2 & 3
 
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Both Famicom Detective Club remakes, individually. The best games that Nintendo has released in a while! Love the collectors set for it. It's like a treasure to me!
 
None will be worth $70 until the master minds behind DMC2 start charging $70 for their games

The only ones I’d pay more than the standard price for aren’t first party ones, it’s Monster Hunter and Elder Scrolls.
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Also, for me I don't really get a DLC unless I truly enjoy a game, no matter the quality of the DLC. The only DLC I've gotten is BOTW, Octo Expansion, some characters from Smash Ultimate. Since I didn't enjoy SWSH I never got its DLC, but I plan on getting it for SV. I also got ACNH and MK8D DLC with my online expansion, but by the time I got them I had already stopped playing those games in a long time so it's not like I would buy those DLCs full price anyways.

My point is that, at least for me, I only buy DLC with games I enjoy, so in a way it's like saying that the original games are worth more than their original MSRP. This is also why I didn't really care about how lackluster BOTW DLC was, because for me I wasn't paying $20 for a little bit of extra content, for me I was paying $80 for a masterpiece, and the DLC was just the cherry on top.
 
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Breath of the Wild and Three Houses are the first two that spring to mind. Based on how much play time and enjoyment I've gotten from them, each of the Xenoblades as well.
 
All Pokémon and Animal Crossing games. $20 price increase had positive effect on sales of these games, increasing a further $10 would probably jack up the sales even higher.
 
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I dont see "time played" as "worth it". There are a ton of things that i would not have consumed if i would have to pay (even a ton of food, where it was free, so it was okay, but i would not have paid to get it)

Still, BotW and Smash for sure did deliver well. But for smash, i payed 60€ + 25 + 30 -> 115€.
Yeah, thats more than i feel confortable.
BotW was 60€ + 30 for the DLC -> 90€. It was fine, the DLC was not worth it, but i at least felt the base game alone validated it.

i can account for more games where the price of 60€ would not have been worth it compared to games where i would pay more then 60€. Links Awakening remake is one of them. Thats not worth 60€ for me.

Hollow Knight would have been worth more then 15€.
Picross games are a weird example: i played them a lot,
but i would not pay more. its a Conformable game to play, its not a unique experience, and if the price would increase, i would have other options that are as cheap and fill the same niche.

To be worth more, it needs to deliver somethign nothing else can, have a lasting inpact, and not be filled with FILLER. long play time is sometimes a negative, some games feel like they could have cut 30h and be a BETTER experience. I would have payed 10€ more in some cases to make it a better game...
 
I can't even justify 60$ for first party nintendo games let alone 70.
Nintendo had a good price x value ratio at 30 to 45$ but the bump to 60$ forced me and my friends to buy used and/or get switch games on a discount.

For everyone ITT saying "game X imo was worth over 70$ because of how much enjoyment I got out of it":
have you ever played a PC indie like, at all?

There's so many PC games that cost less than half what nintendo's first party offerings are priced at yet, I've gotten 2-3 digits of gameplay from them quite easily (granted, some are also available on the eshop but cost more than what you see on epic/steam).

I urge you all to play games like:
  • a hat in time
  • blue fire
  • ex-zodiac
  • hotline miami
  • lobotomy corporation and library of ruina
  • terraria and don't starve
  • 100% orange juice
etc..
And then tell me if you still feel like nintendo's offering a good value at 60$.
 
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That said, out of the 9 60$ switch titles I own that I don't complain too much about the price x value ratio that I can think of:
  • splatoon 3 (with or without switch online)
  • persona 5 royal
  • SMT V
  • mario kart 8
  • BoTW
  • Smash ultimate
 
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I've amassed hundreds of hours played.
That was my first thought as well, there's still so much potential the series hold. It's basically the to-go place for the ultimate laid-down casual relaxation experience and there's no new content releasing for the Switch version. I even started playing Pocket Camp again just to feel like I am part of a living community again.
 
None is my answer. I'm a patient gamer so rarely buy Day 1. If I was to Day 1 a game for say Switch, I'd be buying discounted eShop credit (usually 10% offered by lots of YouTubers and sites like Nintendo Life), and take advantage of the 2x for £84 voucher offer. That generates 5% back in Gold Points (10% recently due to a promo that ended a week or so ago).

So theoretically I could get ToTK plus another Nintendo published title for the equivalent £75.60 (£71.40 if you count Gold Points received). That's 91.41USD before Gold Points or about 45USD per game.

If this facility wasn't available I'd wait until it went on sale at retail or there was a third off on the eShop (for Zelda at any rate).

BotW has always cost more than other titles in the UK, going for £60 on the eShop and several pounds more than other titles at retail. In the UK physical retail is usually cheaper than digital for 1st party Nintendo developed games.
 
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