We’re at a point where video game development is getting more expensive, in turn, making video games more expensive. It’s a pretty punishing cycle that a lot of publishers are trying to push, with Nintendo’s Mario Kart World at the forefront. Like many corporations, these two companies are claiming that the price tag is for quality.
Quality or not, no game is worth $80, even if it’s Mario Kart World, Borderlands 4, or any other big-name franchise. Games were barely worth $70 when the current generation started, so it’s going to be incredibly difficult convincing consumers to pay $10 more for supposed quality. It’s getting to a point that some fans are hoping for a video game crash just to make things cheaper.
And Rockstar Games wants us to pay $100 for GTA 6? Yikes.
To give Nintendo some credit, they did have a reason to hike prices for their games. Rather than use Blu-Ray CDs to store data for installing downloads, they used cartridges that have the full game in it. This was during the Switch 1 generation and it made physical copies of these games feel pretty special.
Full game cards are returning for the Switch 2, with most Nintendo exclusives using them, but we still have a hard time justifying that price. Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong: Bananza look like incredible games, but not worth $80 and $70, respectively. The fact that Microsoft will soon implement these changes to Xbox Series games using installation discs, which are basically Switch 2 game-key cards before they existed, feels like a joke.
Borderlands 4 has also thrown its hat into the possible $80 range topic, to an apathetic response. There are fans who adore Gearbox's looter shooter series, but even we think $80 would be too much for it. Granted, these games usually have plenty of content to churn through, but that’s a hard sell when Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is $50.
It is good to know that other games aren’t immediately following this example being set by Mario Kart World and whatever Microsoft decides to release. We already mentioned Clair Obscur, but the upcoming Mafia: The Old Country is also going to be a rock-solid $50. The Switch 2’s version of Street Fighter 6 is also keeping the previous generation’s $60 as its price, and it comes with the previously-released DLC packs. We’ve also made fun of the Bravely Default remaster, but at least that’s a pretty good $40 at launch.
click to enlargeMaybe we’ll see more games break away from the $80 and $70 trend, even if they aren’t the big AAA games. Some would argue that Mario Kart World will be worth the $80, and it might even succeed at that, but we could spend $60 to just replay Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. There’s just no game that can convince us that $80 is a good thing.
For more articles like this, take a look at our Features , Nintendo , and Mario Kart World pages.