{"id":561514,"date":"2026-03-26T06:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/561514\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T06:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:48:14","slug":"nintendo-to-start-charging-different-prices-for-first-party-digital-and-physical-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/561514\/","title":{"rendered":"Nintendo to start charging different prices for first-party digital and physical games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nintendo just announced it will soon start charging different prices for first-party Switch 2 games based on whether the content is digital or physical<\/a>. This could actually be a good thing for those who like to download their games instead of heading to a brick-and-mortar store to pick up a copy, as digital titles are getting a nice discount.<\/p>\n

It starts with the release of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book on May 21<\/a>, which will be $60 on the eShop but $70 at retail locations. Prior to this, most first-party games were $70 no matter how you bought them. I prefer downloading games, for convenience, and paid that much for both Donkey Kong Bananza<\/a> and Pok\u00e9mon Pokopia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Nintendo<\/p>\n

It’s yet another blow, however, for consumers who prefer physical media. They aren’t getting any kind of a discount, and many Switch 2 cartridges don’t even contain the game nowadays. The boxes include game key cards<\/a>, which allow the user to download the title to the console but are basically paperweights after that.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time Nintendo has participated in this kind of dual pricing structure. The digital version of Donkey Kong Bananza was cheaper than the physical version<\/a> in some parts of the world, including the UK.<\/p>\n

Is this another sign that making and shipping actual things is getting to be prohibitively expensive? There are storage and memory shortages<\/a> due to AI and oil shortages due to war<\/a>, not to mention an ever-shifting tariff policy<\/a> here in the US. It’s tough out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nintendo just announced it will soon start charging different prices for first-party Switch 2 games based on whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,216875,216874,10755,216876,61],"class_list":["post-561514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-digital-titles","tag-downloading-games","tag-nintendo","tag-physical-media","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}