What's fifty dollars?

This sure is vague.

I literally own thousands of games from years of great entertainment.

$100,000 for 2000 games is a significant investment. Even if you're financially comfortable.

$50 for a collection of mini-games that would be hard to sell as $1 apps for your phone seems far too much. I'd much rather devs sell to far more people for less per unit than ask for a lot and get no traction so low total revenue. Games are all about the development cost, not the per-unit reproduction cost (especially digitally) so the path to maximised revenue is not necessarily high unit prices.

@cmblasko: @dan_citi: The console was rumored for the longest to be only $250, so they're asking if the actual $300 price tag (hence $50) is too much for you to buy the Switch.

As for me, yes, the $300 price is too high for me right now. And especially with the Mario game not coming out until Holiday, I'll likely just wait until Black Friday to pick up a Switch.

@redbullet685: This seems like a reasonable answer. I appreciate your honesty.

$50 isn't much when a price is $50

$50 is too much when a price is $300.

The amount of money you have doesn't change the value of something. People don't feel it's worth the extra fifty dollars. If McDonalds tried to sell you a Big Mac for fifty dollars, would you think, "I'm in a comfortable financial positions, $50 is nothing." No you'd say that's absurd, I'm not paying $50 for that turd.

People don't think it's worth $300, and it's especially infuriating because it looks like a significant portion of the cost is tied up in the fancy Joy Cons, when most people just want motion controllers to go away. You also don't get to play games for $300. It's probably another $150 before you can really get started.

On top of that, the pricing outside the US is even more ludicrous. In Canada, the Switch, extra controller, and game is going to cost almost $600.

I want the Switch and Zelda for $300. Right now it's much closer to $400 so I'm going to wait.

It's not just that it's $50-$100 more than most people expected. All of the accessories are also more than everyone expected + having to pay for online is not something anyone expected. So when everything is more money than expected + there's like 2 new launch games everyone's of course going to freak out even more. To get the system+ Zelda+ a pro controller someone would be paying like $450 with tax. Doesn't seem worth it at all.

@hunkulese: If I were to be charged $50 for a burger, it would have to depends on MANY factors. My point was that, in the end, it's all relative. But I do understand your sentiments and appreciate them.

Ah, so this is the console price.

Ye, maybe $299 vs $249 isn't a huge difference but TBH that makes it more expensive in Europe than street prices for the other two current gen consoles and what you get in a 720p screen and battery you lose in vastly weaker software library (and expectation of AAA titles going forward if the announced 2017 calendar of games is any indication) and hardware platform. You can get a PS4 or XB1 with a game for quite a bit less than the Switch asking price here and that just seems a bit off.

Considering this is kinda an nVidia Shield Tablet (newer SoC but no 1200p fancy display) with bluetooth controllers on the side and that thing was $199 then adding an extra $100 seems a bit excessive. Considering the competition then this really looks like something you'll only buy if you're really into owning Ninty 1st party titles as essentials.

Since i live in Sweden and the extra tax on Electronics means yet another 50 for the switch, i do think that the initial 50 is too much. Not that i were planning on buying the Switch at launch anyway seeing as Breath of the wild will be released day and date on the Wii U as well.

@redbullet685: Oh, gotcha, thanks!

I think $300 is a fair price but I don't really need to buy it at launch since I have so many other games that I own and have yet to play. Plus I typically wait for at least one price drop before purchasing consoles, anyway.

@saft: @shivoa: i get that Europe (and other areas like South America) kinda get fucked when it comes to pricing. As a red, white and blue person, I can't understand what you are going through.

I'm still not sure what we're talking about costing $50. Please update the OP and thread title.

(Nevermind. Went ahead and sorted it out myself, except for the title and poll answers which unfortunately can't be updated.)

@bemusedchunk: I mean, I just googled for "PS4 deal US" and the internet told me a PS4 Slim with Uncharted 4 and a $40 gift card is $279 at Newegg.com so... That's a PS4 with a newish game and $40 to spend on another newish game (or pocket as effectively a price under $250 if you shop there for other things normally) for $20 less than the Switch is priced at.

So it seems the issue I talked about is exactly the same in red, white, and blue land. The Switch is significantly more expensive than the street price for the competing consoles which have massive libraries and access to far more releases going forward by the look of it.

No problem if there was any interesting games to play on the damn thing

@shivoa: I think this is an unfair comparison since a Playstation 4 is over 3 years old now.

The average consumer won't be fair. They're just looking for what they think is the best deal for them or their family.

The Wii U was $300 (or $350 for the one everyone should have gotten). For lower powered hardware and less in a full package you got the Nintendo 3DS for $250. I think $300 is actually a very reasonable deal. I was actually expecting those rumors of $400 to be true. It seemed more like what you would actually charge for a package like this.

Well it's $400 in Canada. Woo dollar. Still pre-ordered...

Is it weird that i feel nothing for Nintendo these days?

It's not the fifty dollars.

It's how much they are charging for their product versus their competitors.

If you can get a XBOne or PS4 (which are three years old) for ~249.99 and get better graphical performance than what you can get for a 299.99 machine that doesn't have a lot of AAA third party titles, that's a tough sell for a lot of people.

I just got a PS4 with Uncharted 4 for $200. Asking me to pay $300 for a console that is maybe half as powerful(if that) with no game packed in is ridiculous. Hell, even $250 was being generous.

People are asking why the $50? Because the previous rumor was just that, a rumor. It was a "price jack" or a "price bump", there was never a released price. So $300 is the price point that its starting at.

$300 is just fine. Like OP, maybe its because I am at a financially stable place but even still, I still find other value from it. I think about it like this: The switch is meant to (only the future will tell if it does) replace both your handheld gaming device and your Nintendo console. You are getting the technology and ability of both the 3DS and the Wii put into one. Buying those two separately would be well over $300. Therefore I feel the $300 price point is justified.

So for me as a Canadian, what is Nintendo asking if I want to play with 3 other people and Zelda alone with a proper controller? Purchase their console for 400$, an extra set of Joycons for 100$, a grip/charger for the Joycons for 40$, and a pro controller for 90$. That is 718 fucking dollars after taxes. There is not even an inkling of an idea that I am going to spend that much on a Zelda machine with mini game collections straight out of 2006 and a port of Mario Kart 8.

I was hoping for a pack-in game at this kind of price. But given all the stuff included in the JoyCon I understand why it is priced this way. Also I guess retailers might end up doing some bundling to try to move these.

For where I am in my life right now, the money basically isn't even a concern. I'll be picking this up when I feel like I have time to play, which probably won't be until Summer.

Its reasonable but too much for me, i would pay that much if it replaced my tablet though.

If both Arms and 1-2-Switch were pack-in games, then that would probably have tampered concerns at the price. But no pack-in games, $50 - $60 each for some extra games, extra accessories are all very expensive. All that makes that 299 prices more difficult to swallow.

If that's the case why buy it when it's $300 and has practically no games to support your reasons for being interested in it? If it does justify itself down the line, it'll likely be cheaper and easier to find at that point, and also have a bigger library. I'm honestly struggling to see any reason to pay full price for one of these things unless you desperately need that Zelda port.

Then again, my country doesn't even have a confirmed price yet and I'm expecting it to cost a hell of a lot more than $300USD based on the Canadian price, so I'm not even in the same camp as you are.

EDIT: okay, there is a price out for my country now and it's $550NZD, which is spiked even above the Canadian price by a significant amount, and is $100 more than a PS4, and nearly $200 more than a regular Xbox One. Count me right out of this system.

I wish the Switch was $300...

...in Canada.

It's $469 Australian Dollarydoos. Despite how insane that sounds, it's not much of a hike when you factor in currency conversion / tax / shipping.

Still, it puts them in this weird space price-wise where the older models of Xbox One and PS4 are regularly sold for less due to how long they've been on shelves.

I mean it's only $50 more for the console, but then if you want a standard controller you're dropping an extra $70 right away on top of that for the pro controller, and then another $50-60 for a game, and potentially another $80 if you're going to be buying another pair of JoyCon to probably get more use out of 1 2 Switch if thats your thing.

And that's at US prices which are among the lowest.

It's partially because the switch is fifty dollars more than I was hoping it would be, and partially because I don't think any of the games they've showed so far look very impressive.

I always love when some one says "well it's only X amount of money more, that's nothing in the scheme of things". That tells me the person in question has never had to be careful with money due to savings/low income/etc.

Anywho, 50 bucks more is a big deal to me because it's more money then I wanted to spend on a console I would only use half of the features for. I'm never gonna play this thing un-docked, so the un-docked on the go version or the (horrible) looking Joy-cons as controllers modes are wasted on me. I'm also not going to go in on this console for what they ask for with seemingly no game coming out in the next 9 months (Mario almost has to be delayed).

I'll enjoy Zelda on my Wii U and it'll be fine to me.

I got that same deal, minus the $40 gift card, for $230 over Christmas. That's a more powerful console with a game for $70 less than the base Switch. And PS4 controllers are cheaper. And there's a vastly more reliable internet infrastructure, with games tied to accounts and not consoles and if you're paying their multiplayer fee, you get like two free games a month. And there are several exclusive games coming out this year. And there are several exclusives that have already come out and are fairly cheap these days. You can't play it in a different room, though - unless you bought a Vita, in which case you totally can! I bought a Vita, I haven't tested that functionality out yet, I should do that.

Anyway, as has been pointed out before, I just can't justify buying the Switch right now. I'd really like to, but literally the only thing I'd play on it until Mario comes out is Zelda - but that's coming out on the Wii U as well, so unless that game is a total travesty on the Wii U, I'm not buying a Switch.

A console without any games I want isn't worth an additional $50, some might even say it's actually valued at $0 base price at the moment. Though, just like I eventually got a Ps4 a years later, there'll probably be some Nintendo games I want down the line. Perhaps the ends will meet around $200 or something.

If only it was just $50 - $300.00 USD converted to AUD is $399.98. Yet our RRP at EB Games is $469.00.

I'll still get one but come on.

It's $400 CAD plus tax, I have a Wii U for Zelda which will hold me off of getting a Switch at launch. Come November and Mario I maybe tempted to buy one then but they'll need to set an actual decent line up at E3 to get me to bite the bullet.

I think the base price of the console is fine, and what I expected. The controllers, though, are ridiculously priced. I have a "fuck you" opinion of Nintendo at the moment for thinking those are fair prices for those tiny hunks of plastic. I'd be interested to know what the margin of profit is.

It's funny how rumors color people's expectations in such weird ways.

I don't think that's entirely fair. It's not even new hardware, It's literally a tablet with controllers. Practically a rebranded shield with a modified controller. I think 250$ was already too much, 300$ is a little extra "We don't care". They aren't china, they need to care.

You don't even get a game with the stupid thing. There are only 12 games available, all 60$. The online continues to be abysmal, and it continues to be underpowered hardware. The battery life sucks for a portable platform, and supposedly it clocks to 1/2 which means games are developed with both modes in mind(which keeps prices higher) or things just run poorly when not docked. So the 50$ difference from the rumored price isn't the problem, it's the 300$ it costs which isn't a psychological thing, and 80$ for controllers, and 60$ for games. The fact that they're going to release Zelda on the Wii U really makes this look like a poor value considering you're not likely to notice any difference. The launch list is pretty poor and it's not like the xbox or ps4, you won't get a huge 3rd party support and you don't REALLY get a whole lot of first party support.

I'd like to add that I think it's a pretty shitty thing to put mobile games out for 60$(1, 2 switch). What's the expected number of consoles sold for this thing? Half the Wii U? 1/3?

It's certainly on the high end of what people were expecting. But, whatevz. Nintendo's going to undership the hell out of this console. So no one's going to get a Switch for a good long while.

I'd be fine with paying 400 kangaroo dollars for the Switch, which is roughly where the exchange rate would land us. It seems like prices for people outside of the US and Japan (and Canada, it just seems like Canadians are paying what their exchange rate says they should pay and have fond memories of their dollar being closed to parity with the US) are higher than exchange rates can justify. Maybe they only have ample supply for a JP/US launch despite announcing a simultaneous international launch, so they're balancing out demand with higher prices; or maybe international logistics and support channels are far more costly (though other hardware companies have this shit down?); or maybe they're just hoping that the Switch will take off at $300 in the US and the rest of the world will be forced to accept higher prices in order to buy into the craze.

I will say that it has me building the game list for the Wii U and contemplating getting one of those. I do want the best version of Zelda: BotW I can get, though, so I don't know.

So they're shipping the consoles from Japan or China where they're making them, over to the US, and then over to Australia? That's bizarre and probably not actually the case. And wrt taxes, isn't the US RRP of $300 sales tax inclusive? Like, surely they don't advertise a retail price of $299.95 in California and expect people there to do the mental maths to add the 7% or whatever state sales tax, do they? Overall I'm pretty sure the Australia tax is actually just companies thinking they can increase their margins by around what shipping from the US would cost and still move units.

Oh, and the newer models of Xbox One and PS4 can be had for less, not preowned, and usually with bundled-in games, fwiw.

I say this as someone who has a history of standing up to defend devs and publishers when angry gamers get shitty and entitled: Australian consumers are getting fucked.

I'll say what I said in the other thread.

This thing is going to have a bad launch, and a big part of that is being out of step with the competition. Sony and Xbox didn't need to have strong launches, because they both happened at more or less the same time and neither was offering that amazing of a launch line-up, especially when compared to the other one. Nintendo is releasing an underpowered console long after everyone else, and the pricing is going to screw them, if only because the PS4 and Xbox One have been out long enough that you can get them at very reasonable prices in good bundles, along with a back catalogue of reasonably priced games, while Nintendo wants you to shell out 60 USD for 1-2-Switch. I also genuinely don't think that the launch line-up is that poor overall. BotW, Puyo Puyo Tetris and even Bomberman all look like good games.

That being said, by the end of 2017 the Switch is going to look like a reasonable console, 2018 if you want to talk price drops and/or good bundles (I'm saying this assuming that Mario Odyssey doesn't get delayed). That's not even accounting for the inevitable Pokemon installment. A big part of that will be showing that they can do a good paid online service. Making those SNES/NES games to keep would be a big step forward. No one is going to be paying for the service if they feel like they aren't getting something out of it when they don't play MP every day, and quite frankly, the idea of just renting NES/SNES games seems kind of insulting to me.

You're making an error in your assessment. It's not about whether 50 dollars is a lot of money on its own. It's about 50 dollars to define the worth of something, in this case a console.

The example of reasoning you give: 'if you're a student I understand, but otherwise 50 dollars isn't that much' makes no sense. We're not talking about whether you have or can still survive comfortably if you had to pay 50 dollars. We're talking about paying it for an object. It's tied to the (perceived) value of that object. You can't just detach it like that. Otherwise, why don't you just give me 50 dollars? You're arguing it shouldn't be an issue, so just give it to me then? No, you wouldn't. Because that's not worth anything to you. You also wouldn't pay 100 bucks for a gift certificate of 50 bucks. It's not worth that much.

I can have 100.000 dollars in the bank and think 300 bucks for the Switch is overpriced. It's not about how much money I have, it's about a sense of worth. For the record, I think the price is fine, but edging it. 250 would have been an instant buy for me but for 300 I'm thinking: 'hm, only 32GB of space so I'll have to get some type of additional space to travel with later on no doubt that's quite a lot to ask for 300 for the thing it is and...' etc.

@adequatelyprepared I don't think you can compare Nintendo to Sony and Microsoft anymore. If you want to play Nintendo games, you're not going to be bothered by seeing a PS4 on sale which has more games. Because it will have 0 Nintendo games.

Hey man, I could buy half of a controller with that fifty bucks...

Honestly I thought the $250 rumor was too optimistic. For whatever reason (cynicism, years of being a Nintendo fan, etc.) I thought $300 USD was the price. Who knows, maybe 6 months down the line they'll lower the price and early adopters will become "ambassadors" and get a dozen virtual console games. Hell, I played through Metroid Fusion on my 3DS just last month.

On a side note, I think the rumor mill really hurt Nintendo in this regard. $300 doesn't seem particularly steep for a new console, but that $250 pricetag really whipped people into a frenzy it seems.

$400 CAD is basically $300 USD tho. Same price. Easy life. UK price is £279.99, which even with Brexit completely fucking the Pound up is still $340 ($450 CAD). Before Brexit happened that would have been closer to $500 USD.

350 Euro makes it no buy. People will compare it to xbox and ps4 and at that price point it just fails.