Digital Nintendo-published titles to be cheaper than physical releases going forwards

LeyendaV · Mar 31, 2026

Moogley said:
Well, it's no wonder Nintendo can get away with such obvious consumer hostility like price hikes, surcharges for framerate, $10 pack-in titles, remote-bricked consoles, key cards, etc.

If this is who their consumers are, expecting them to change is like expecting a dog to report not being fed.

But don't worry. I know you don't know you're not being fed, but that doesn't mean I won't keep putting the food out in case you change your mind.

No wonder Sony and Microsoft get away with charging almost $1k per console PLUS everything you just mentioned; if this is how their consumers are, expecting them to change is like expecting a dog to report not being fed.

But don't worry. I know you don't know you're not being fed, but that doesn't mean I won't keep putting the food out in case you change your mind.

Lumstar · Mar 31, 2026

LeyendaV said:
No wonder Sony and Microsoft get away with charging almost $1k per console PLUS everything you just mentioned; if this is how their consumers are, expecting them to change is like expecting a dog to report not being fed.

But don't worry. I know you don't know you're not being fed, but that doesn't mean I won't keep putting the food out in case you change your mind.

The better question is, how should a console maker react when the hardware components increase in price?

It isn't like Sony can sweet talk a titan like TSMC into playing nice. Gaming is a drop in the bucket for the firms who produce chips for every electronic gizmo on the planet.

Moogley · Mar 31, 2026

LeyendaV said:
No wonder Sony and Microsoft get away with charging almost $1k per console PLUS everything you just mentioned; if this is how their consumers are, expecting them to change is like expecting a dog to report not being fed.

But don't worry. I know you don't know you're not being fed, but that doesn't mean I won't keep putting the food out in case you change your mind.

I'm not a ... Sony/Microsoft consumer? I'm a Nintendo consumer.

In addition to not knowing when you're being starved, you're a little hard of hearing too. I think this is futile.

The real problem is that you think consuming something means you need to advocate for every part of it. You don't know the difference. That's why you think you're saying something that makes sense by accusing me of buying Sony consoles, which I ... don't lol. Never have.

I'm criticizing Nintendo because I love Nintendo, and I want them to deserve my love instead of abusing it.

ZeroT21 · Mar 31, 2026

rudras said:
Pff it's ridiculous.... it was the purpose of all digital game format in the first place... costing less because no box/cartriges production and more...
So yeah starting May 2026, they are gonna "keep their promise" and give a little discount....amazing! OMG! So nice of them!
Seriously wake up a bit! They (and not just nintendo) just lie and trick everyone with their digital price since the start.

True ,but not entirely so. It's simply to justify keeping physical at full price

LeyendaV · Mar 31, 2026

Moogley said:
I'm not a ... Sony/Microsoft consumer? I'm a Nintendo consumer.

In addition to not knowing when you're being starved, you're a little hard of hearing too. I think this is futile.

The real problem is that you think consuming something means you need to advocate for every part of it. You don't know the difference. That's why you think you're saying something that makes sense by accusing me of buying Sony consoles, which I ... don't lol. Never have.

I'm criticizing Nintendo because I love Nintendo, and I want them to deserve my love instead of abusing it.

Interesting, then, how you have a whole history of talking trash about Nintendo.
It's the very first time I've seen a "brand lover" like you claim to be, getting mad at said brand for lowering the prices of some of their products, especially when the competition keeps raising them. Talking fancy doesn't help you when you have no arguments.

Renos44 · Apr 1, 2026

Moogley said:
Well, it's no wonder Nintendo can get away with such obvious consumer hostility like price hikes, surcharges for framerate, $10 pack-in titles, remote-bricked consoles, key cards, etc.

If this is who their consumers are, expecting them to change is like expecting a dog to report not being fed.

But don't worry. I know you don't know you're not being fed, but that doesn't mean I won't keep putting the food out in case you change your mind.

ah yes
"price hikes" Have you ever heard of inflation or a down turn in the economy? Supply lines being fucked up. When shit hits the fan prices do as well a tale as old as time. Every company does this to an extent,

"Surcharges for framerate" BTW sony and MS was doing with the ps5 and xbox for the first few years as well. Even more so if we want to extend to those weird cross 360/ps3 and xbone/ps4 releases. Simply put unlike PC you can't just easily change graphics settings on console. To make the most of out new hardware it requires a porting job.

"$10 pack in" I mean people can bitch endlessly about welcome tour. Its a glorified tech demo so i could not really care about it. Not like Nintendo was known to throw in freebies like outside of wii sports which was NA/EU exclusive, JP had to pay for it

"Remote-bricked console" Do please name even 1 example of this happening I'll be waiting, Same EULA language of "If you modify device it may be disabled" has been in place since the xbox 360 era.
Banned switch 2s behave exactly like banned switch 1s.
which behave like banned 3ds
which behave like banned ps4s which behave like banned ps3s
which behave like banned xbox ones which behave like banned xbox 360s

Which is fully functional offline can never connect to online services outside of maybe system updates ever again,

But somehow the internet has ignored 20 years of console EULAs and every switch is supposedly being remote bricked.

"Key cards" TBH lesser of the 2 evils would you rather have another abundance of download codes as physical releases again or not. I'm not gonna sit here either and act like there isnt a good chunk of PS/Xbox discs out theire that have nothing on the disc either. Or the build on the disc is borderline unplayable.

Its as if the indsutry has been on this trajectory for years now but because its Nintendo they are the only evil.

Reecey · Apr 1, 2026

DiscostewSM said:
Well, that is 3rd-party who chooses their own prices. This news is specifically about Nintendo's own games in the US, which has already made the separation in other regions with physical being more than digital.

True true true I didn’t see that bit Nintendos own software

Moogley · Apr 1, 2026

Renos44 said:
"price hikes" Have you ever heard of inflation or a down turn in the economy? Supply lines being fucked up. When shit hits the fan prices do as well a tale as old as time. Every company does this to an extent,

"The economy" does not force them to raise prices or lower value. We're paying $70 for digital copies of 6-hour games because people are willing to "explain" why the multi-billion-dollar company "has" to do that on a product with insane profit margins already. The economy is their opportunity, not their cost.

E.g., Nintendo was doing a hell of a lot worse "economically" in 2013 and Pushmo was $6.99. Nintendo Selects was $19.99.

More importantly, why do you think justifying corporate practice is a smart point to make? Of course corporations have "logical reasons." But consumers should have standards to counterbalance them.

The other points follow this. Yes, Sony charges for framerate upgrades. No, that does not make it okay for Nintendo to do it.

When Nintendo games look bad, people say "kids won't know the difference." When they charge $10 for +30 fps, people say, "all the adult consoles do it." It can't be both without being toxic.

Renos44 said:
"$10 pack in" I mean people can bitch endlessly about welcome tour. Its a glorified tech demo so i could not really care about it. Not like Nintendo was known to throw in freebies like outside of wii sports which was NA/EU exclusive, JP had to pay for it

I'll address this one because this isn't really a point; it's just a deflection. Welcome Tour should have been free, just like Wii Sports and ... Nintendo Land, Face Raiders, AR Games, Pictochat, Street Pass Mii Plaza, DSi Sound, Activity Log, Twilight Princess Picross. You don't know what you're talking about.

DolphinPussy · Apr 2, 2026

The thing that really bothers me is the GCK. I simply choose to miss out on content if it doesn't serve me.

I'd prefer to have a storage compromise between both the customer and company, if they want to save money; they should use the slower chips, compress the hell out of their games, and decompress them as cache in the S2 storage temporarily without the perma-bloat or long download times.

ChronosNotashi · Apr 2, 2026

DolphinPussy said:
The thing that really bothers me is the GCK. I simply choose to miss out on content if it doesn't serve me.

Nintendo doesn't use GKCs for their first-party games, so this wouldn't really apply. (Pokopia's an exception, but that's more because of the Pokemon IP ownership in general, and The Pokemon Company handling publishing in Japan likely also relates). GKCs are primarily used by third-party publishers, and Nintendo's decision to reduce the price of first-party digital titles does not automatically carry over to third-party publishers.

Those publishers still decide the prices they want to set for their own games, and most of them seem content with keeping physical and digital prices the same (likely to keep brick-and-mortar stores appeased until the publishers can gut out physical for good). For instance, Monster Hunter Stories 3 is USD $70 for all systems, regardless of physical or digital, and has a Day 1 $25 "Deluxe Kit" DLC for those who purchased physical (or didn't buy the $90 "Deluxe Edition" or $100 "Premium Deluxe Edition"). Stories 3 is also a Capcom-developed/published game, so Nintendo has no more influence on that game's pricing than Sony, Microsoft, and Valve would.

DolphinPussy · Apr 2, 2026

ChronosNotashi said:
Nintendo's decision to reduce the price of first-party digital titles does not automatically carry over to third-party publishers.

That's fair, all of what you say is fact, I'm in agreement.
My point is data must be present in the cartridges in some shape, way or form, I put convenience above all else.

The NS2 has solid third party titles in their line up, the best they've ever been as a matter of fact; so being able to have the data extracted from a slow "write-only" cart is preferable for me, than re-downloading the same game over and over in case of a storage limitations (multiple non-digital gck), or airport scenarios.

It is policy not to spend an extra $5 for S1 tech, limiting methods on how data is transferred to the system restricts user flexibility, which is imperative.

The current offering works as an incentive for the user to spend more when titles are bought, which fair, that's the whole point; but if money isn't the issue then availability is, even if the SD Express can simply be upgraded, the amount of available faster storage in the UFS is more finite; games like star wars require an install there, and these UFS only titles will grow.

Therefore, mandating cache carts for extreme scenarios would be a great addition to at the least quickly manage storage.
The S2 console has the ability to implement this, extracting the files into UFS in first boot, installing the critical assets from cart, and reading that data to the user in the same beat, allowing near-seamless streaming from UFS, with possibly no internet required if compression shrinks the .nsp enough.
Heck, this should be a feature for any physical game, for that internal speed boost.

Sony and Xbox have done this with DVD's to HDD for a long time.
It is time for Nintendo to take a page from them and perfect their method.

DiscostewSM · Apr 2, 2026

DolphinPussy said:
The thing that really bothers me is the GCK. I simply choose to miss out on content if it doesn't serve me.

I'd prefer to have a storage compromise between both the customer and company, if they want to save money; they should use the slower chips, compress the hell out of their games, and decompress them as cache in the S2 storage temporarily without the perma-bloat or long download times.
https://chat.deepseek.com/share/ku8qn1t14ckwbrpu82
https://chat.deepseek.com/share/il9hor913xyqfijue5

I hate to break it to you, but chat AI does not give answers based on its own analysis. It doesn't really have the capacity. It gives responses based on what it is trained on, which more or less means having been used like a massive search engine to find anything and everything it can find, including wrong information. It doesn't have the means to discern what is and isn't correct, so it attempts to formulate an answer as if everything it finds just fits. And it even contradicts itself. For example, this AI even claims that Sw1 game card memory is more expensive per GB than Sw2 game card memory. The problem is that AI generally doesn't question you. AI models are designed to be far more agreeable. Studies have shown they are 50% more often to agree with you than people, which can include validating harmful or incorrect information.

And just reading over that chat, you're basically asking for something no one really wants. Folks don't like GKC because "the full game" isn't on them. They don't like how they have to download "anything", so this hybrid model is merely a more expensive version of GKC.

DolphinPussy · Apr 2, 2026

DiscostewSM said:
It doesn't have the means to discern what is and isn't correct, so it attempts to formulate an answer as if everything it finds just fits. And it even contradicts itself. For example, this AI even claims that Sw1 game card memory is more expensive per GB than Sw2 game card memory.

AI tends to be incredibly stupid, so it is bad form to rely on it for information, due to its nature of amalgamation, that much is true.
Either way, I'm gonna miss out on some cool games on the platform due to the current business model, as I also don't want to download anything, especially with a huge ass file size; I'd prefer my "cache cart" model over what GCK are now, empty husks.

The slop explains it, now slightly less sloppy.
https://chat.deepseek.com/share/hhmbm4iqw9gmy4sbjx
The new issue would be having this model become the default, physical cartridges being phased out for install carts; so that also sucks. It all sucks, I suck, lol.

DiscostewSM · Apr 2, 2026

DolphinPussy said:
AI tends to be incredibly stupid, so it is bad form to rely on it for information, due to its nature of amalgamation, that much is true.
Either way, I'm gonna miss out on some cool games on the platform due to the current business model; I'd prefer my "cache cart" model over what GCK are now, empty husks.

Sure, but the cache design you have suggested has some flaws, if it's the way I'm understanding it. I have a Series X, and when I am downloading a game, that game may be designed around having a "ready to play" portion. It allows me to play the game before it finishes. But that is different than the cache design you seem to be presenting, because that "ready to play" data is ultimately part of the entire game stored on the destination storage device. It's just handled first. It is not being "cached" onto storage from the source every time you load up the game.

Every time you install a game onto storage, you are utilizing write cycles on the cells they occupy. By caching, you are using those cycles each time. Flash storage is designed around balancing what cells get written, allowing to improve overall longevity, but if that's happening with each hybrid card bootup (or even game card swap) with GB on GB of data to cache, that speeds up the wear and tear.

Maybe you've thought about simply using the card as an extra source, loaded straight into RAM. That could be something, but it doesn't make much sense if the entire game could already fit into a full card. A card with slower speeds so it doesn't cost as much? I know XCX on Wii U was one such game where if you had it on disc, you could obtain a free 10GB downloadable pack clocked at around 10GB onto storage, and the game would read from both sources. But that was logical because the problem was random access delays due to moving parts, which flash storage doesn't really have a problem with. Besides, such a measure for Switch 2 would just lead to longer load times because then, the slower card becomes the bottleneck.

DolphinPussy · Apr 2, 2026

DiscostewSM said:
Every time you install a game onto storage, you are utilizing write cycles on the cells they occupy. By caching, you are using those cycles each time. Flash storage is designed around balancing what cells get written, allowing to improve overall longevity, but if that's happening with each hybrid card bootup (or even game card swap) with GB on GB of data to cache, that speeds up the wear and tear.

Maybe you've thought about simply using the card as an extra source, loaded straight into RAM. That could be something, but it doesn't make much sense if the entire game could already fit into a full card. A card with slower speeds so it doesn't cost as much?

The cache idea would be silly, in retrospect. Giving it a second thought however; if caching means faster loading speeds by method of reading from both SD Express and UFS, A quick solution for the Switch OS would be to allow installed titles on the "slow' SD Express to automatically copy to UFS for convenient two tiered storage access, for that speed benefit.
UFS would take up one redundant games worth of storage as the 1tb SD holds the rest of the titles, and pulls each inside NAND whenever necessary, or requested by the user, ultimately being an acceptable way to pull insane speed on UFS while still saving a lot of space.

As for memory cache? Let's leave that alone, the S2 only has 9gb usable for devs; it'd be even less if it held data as memory cache.
Thit method won't have much of a drastic benefit methinks and it's not what I want.

You are very right about the wear & tear too, as reinstalling hundreds (potentially tens of thousands?) of times will drastically reduce the life of the console all for the sake of saving some storage, though the endurance for a UFS 3.1 drive is 300TBW, which are 9,600 32gb sized installs.

Even if this is incredibly convenient, it's a potential tradeoff that will ultimately benefit hardware repair sales via replacement consoles; which is not at all what I wanted to imply, but you got me there.
If one had the option to archive only the write heavy portions in NAND, and remove the lighter blocks of consecutive data, it might lead to less intensive re-installations; useful for write reduction, saving space, trimming games you don't need quick access to, and soft overprovisioning.

We are being pushed to digital, and we matter enough to at least have a relatively efficient compromise, but no matter what way we go, we seem to have policy that hasn't caught up.

A slow, install only S2 media in cheaper to manufacture S1-format might reduce costs and write amplification, but then the wear is on the card itself from local installs, but 6 minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time, which is preferable still to GCK. One won't be allowed to actually play directly off the cart without being strained by the bandwidth bottleneck, the game otherwise would have to be fully installed, or optimized for realtime streaming+decompression from the partial data in NAND during boot, but that requires a programming team that knows exactly how the hardware works.

Besides, I admittedly don't know what S1 carts actually cost to manufacture, all I know is that they need to do better to adapt, but; 32gb S1 costs could be as expensive as 64gb S2 for all I know, I really don't know.
Having the R&D for a definitive answer for each use case should always be in Nintendos cards, that's what they are the best at; and it's what gets us the most exciting update features like handheld boost mode.

I have faith that Nintendo will iron out their quirks, maybe not in the way we think, maybe not soon, but they still have some ingenuity left in them yet. I will be patient.

DiscostewSM · Apr 2, 2026

DolphinPussy said:
The cache idea would be silly, in retrospect. Giving it a second thought however; if caching means faster loading speeds by method of reading from both SD Express and UFS, A quick solution for the Switch OS would be to allow installed titles on the "slow' SD Express to automatically copy to UFS for convenient two tiered storage access, for that speed benefit.
UFS would take up one redundant games worth of storage as the 1tb SD holds the rest of the titles, and pulls each inside NAND whenever necessary, or requested by the user, ultimately being an acceptable way to pull insane speed on UFS while still saving a lot of space.

Except, how exactly would it help in loading times to read from multiple sources when it's not going straight into RAM? Remember, games are compressed. The data needs to be decompressed before it can be usable, and decompression takes time. We don't know the extent of the system's hardware FDE block, but given how loading from mSDE isn't that much slower compared to internal storage, the bottleneck in this scenario isn't likely the storage mediums.

DolphinPussy said:
You are very right about the wear & tear too, as reinstalling hundreds (potentially tens of thousands?) of times will drastically reduce the life of the console all for the sake of saving some storage, though the endurance for a UFS 3.1 drive is 300TBW, which are 9,600 32gb sized installs.

That's if we only think about such installs, and not everything else, like installing other games fully, game saves, and even OS utilization. Adding holds for temporary data on top of what it is already dealing with is just going to wear it out that much faster.

DolphinPussy said:
We are being pushed to digital, and we matter enough to at least have a relatively efficient compromise, but no matter what way we go, we seem to have policy that hasn't caught up.

A slow, install only S2 media in cheaper to manufacture S1-format might reduce costs and write amplification, but then the wear is on the card itself from local installs, but 6 minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time, which is preferable still to GCK. One won't be allowed to actually play directly off the cart without being strained by the bandwidth bottleneck, the game otherwise would have to be fully installed, or optimized for realtime streaming+decompression from the partial data in NAND during boot, but that requires a programming team that knows exactly how the hardware works.

Besides, I admittedly don't know what S1 carts actually cost to manufacture, all I know is that they need to do better to adapt, but; 32gb S1 costs could be as expensive as 64gb S2 for all I know, I really don't know.
Having the R&D for a definitive answer for each use case should always be in Nintendos cards, that's what they are the best at; and it's what gets us the most exciting update features like handheld boost mode.

I have faith that Nintendo will iron out their quirks, maybe not in the way we think, maybe not soon, but they still have some ingenuity left in them yet. I will be patient.

And that is an important point. While it is appreciated to imagine other ways to improve the situation, let's not believe that Nintendo hasn't already gone through dozens if not hundreds of scenarios during their R&D. They work directly with this stuff, and I have a hard time believing that they "missed" an opportunity. And it isn't simply having an idea and implementing it. They spend a LOT of time in the QA phase, going through the development loop with as many use cases as possible to ensure nothing breaks/crashes/etc.

DolphinPussy · Apr 2, 2026

DiscostewSM said:
That's if we only think about such installs, and not everything else, like installing other games fully, game saves, and even OS utilization. Adding holds for temporary data on top of what it is already dealing with is just going to wear it out that much faster.

You've exposed the weakest link in my idea, and for that I must thank you.
If the data is constantly written/erased, it will objectively wear out the UFS even if it doesn't break the console.
I propose a slightly more conservative idea, with the same amount of writes; but only a small amount of erasing (old data) via automatic UFS management when necessary.
https://chat.deepseek.com/share/lmggkd85k16z028zew

This allows Nintendo to actually strip down the UFS to 128gb in future "lite" models, if they implemented a smart storage management system that is, with their current GCK offerings however, one will still have to constantly redownload.

I don't see why having a Game-Install card would be so different from what homebrew already allows one to do with backups, the biggest difference is that the game in this scenario (star wars outlaws) won't need to be redownloaded after being removed from UFS, as it will sit in either SD Express or Game cart; sure you'll still need to transfer it back to UFS to play it, but the feature is welcome regardless.
https://en-americas-support.nintend.../a_id/154/~/save-data-backup-feature-overview

Moogley · Apr 2, 2026

LeyendaV said:
It's the very first time I've seen a "brand lover" like you claim to be, getting mad at said brand for lowering the prices of some of their products, especially when the competition keeps raising them. Talking fancy doesn't help you when you have no arguments.

Raising the price of games to $70-80, with no sales, and offering digital versions for $10 less doesn't qualify as "lowering the prices" to anyone really, except the Nintendrones.

When you love something, you protect it. You want the best for it. I see a future where if Nintendo keeps treating us like this, there won't BE a Nintendo, not as we know it. Even the word "NINTENDO" used to mean nothing but quality, and now it has to be qualiFIED. I don't want that.

I want Nintendo to be a video game developer again, NOT a tech company. I want them to treat the industry better, treat us better, and treat their IPs better.

Criticism is not the opposite of love. Apathy is the opposite of love.

Renos44 · Apr 3, 2026

DolphinPussy said:
Besides, I admittedly don't know what S1 carts actually cost to manufacture, all I know is that they need to do better to adapt, but; 32gb S1 costs could be as expensive as 64gb S2 for all I know, I really don't know.
Having the R&D for a definitive answer for each use case should always be in Nintendos cards, that's what they are the best at; and it's what gets us the most exciting update features like handheld boost mode.

From an industry insider a few years ago
"If a publisher wants to put a game on a 32GB cart on Switch it costs 60% more for them then it would for a 50GB Blu-Ray on PS4/XB1. Add on the licensing and other fees and it was coming out as like 22 dollars of a 60 dollar game was going to Nintendo, as opposed to the like 14$ that would go to Sony or Microsoft for an equivalent version" So devs avoided 32gb switch 1 carts like the plague.

Given from the much more expensive NAND flashes used in switch 2 carts are and they only come in 64gb I'm gonna say publishing switch 2 carts is likely 27-30$ for a $60 game.

Now personally from what i've heard from people in the industry.
1. The manufacturer Nintendo chose for the switch 2 carts only made 64gb and above. They never went lower as no other customer needed lower thus no reason to make them. 16gb and 32gb may come later.

2. There was a bit of a back and forth between publishers retailers and Nintendo. Publishers didn't want to pay for carts at all. Took issue with slow read speeds and were fully happy to just go digital only. Retailers didn't like this as they lose money, Nintendo made GCKs as a compromise and footed the bill for some developers for normal carts.

3. NAND flash shortage is only making it worse.

branchus · Apr 4, 2026

I think the correct way to read this is: Digital stay the same while physicals are priced higher.

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