Nintendo fans demand Switch 2 game price cut as they spam livestream

For the second consecutive day, Nintendo’s Treehouse livestream has been flooded with outrage over the prices for the Switch 2.

Nintendo’s huge Switch 2 Direct may have delivered big game reveals, impressive third party support, and lots of GameCube games, but since then the prevailing conversation around the system has been about pricing.

While few are complaining about the console’s £395.99 price tag (£429.99 when bundled with Mario Kart World) the price of its games has become a major point of contention. The main issue is Mario Kart World, which costs £74.99 for a physical edition and £66.99 for the digital version.

It’s unclear whether this price will become the norm, but fellow Switch 2 exclusive Donkey Kong Bananza is cheaper, at £66.99 for a physical copy and £58.99 for digital. Prior to this, The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom was the most expensive Switch game at £59.99, although no other game on the system cost that much.

While Nintendo clearly knew there might be some blowback against the prices, as it omitted them from the Switch 2 Direct, it probably didn’t expect fans to flood the comments of its livestream and demand a price cut during its Nintendo Treehouse livestream for two days straight.

During the Nintendo Treehouse broadcasts on YouTube across Thursday April 3 and Friday April 4, the comments were relentlessly inundated with ‘drop the price’ messages – with zero acknowledgment from Nintendo the entire time.

It’s an interesting situation because the price of Mario Kart World, while expensive, is in line with the cost of other triple-A games. Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 sold for £69.99 digitally at launch, along with EA Sports FC 25. Not only is that slightly more expensive than Mario Kart World but both franchises release new sequels every year; while there’s unlikely to be a new Mario Kart until the Switch 3.

The backlash against the price appears to be a combination of factors. Firstly, Nintendo is seen as the affordable family-friendly option, and rather than prices increasingly slowly over the years this is a sudden leap forward, even if it is still similar to other big name games.

What also hasn’t helped is the impression that Nintendo is being stingy with the Switch 2 elsewhere. Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which looks like a free pack-in game, is actually a paid-for title, while the system’s GameChat online social features will, sometime next year, be locked behind a Nintendo Switch Online membership.

At the same time, Nintendo has done little to highlight the fact that the console bundle effectively means you’re buying Mario Kart Word for just £34, which is an amazing bargain that may have helped to dispel the outrage if it had been a more central part of the Nintendo Direct.

You’ll need to buy a camera separately too for £49.99 to capitalise on GameChat features and any camera functionality in games, such as Super Mario Party Jamboree’s new TV mode (this is on top of the price of an upgrade for the Switch 2 Edition).

While the lack of in-built camera is perhaps understandable to keep the cost of the system down, when combined with everything else, the Switch 2 doesn’t exactly (at this point, at least) give the impression of a generous, consumer-friendly package overall.

Ironically, based on what we’ve played during hands-on previews, Mario Kart World might be the one part of this which justifies the lofty price tag. The game is set to be shown off again in a special Direct on April 17, so it might appease some concerns then.

It remains to be seen if Nintendo will attempt to address the fury, but considering GTA 6 is expected to sell for an even higher price, this might just be the shock of a new reality for game prices moving forward.

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