A key executive at UK retailer Game says Nintendo is right to give its games higher prices, but notes its decision to make physical games more expensive than digital will prove difficult for his company.
In an interview with The Game Business, Game managing director Nick Arran said he felt the retailer’s pre-order allocation of Switch 2 hardware will likely sell out “in minutes, not hours”, and that the price of the console is “really great”.
However, he also noted Nintendo‘s decision to make its physical games more expensive than its digital ones may make things trickier for Game and other retailers.
The most notable example of this is Mario Kart World, which has been confirmed to cost £75 physically in the UK, but £67 digitally.
“It’s a challenge,” Arran said. “Nintendo is predominantly physical, and it’s proud to be physical. To make the move before PlayStation and Xbox that digital games will be cheaper than physical, it’s a bold move and it will be a bit of a challenge for us as a retailer. And it’s a tough message for a customer when there are differences in prices if they prefer physical. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.”
Despite the price discrepancy, Arran said Game will continue to sell physical Switch 2 products, saying: “It is not going to stop us in terms of the support we’re going to give Switch 2 and Nintendo. And hopefully it won’t have too much of an effect on physical sales.
“As a retailer, physical is obviously important to me. But I am also a strong believer that gaming is an important media that needs to have physical. If you’re spending £75/£70 on a product, it’s the tangible value that can sit on the shelf and be in your collection. Hopefully this strategy doesn’t impact that.”
One thing Arran does feel Nintendo got right, however, is the decision to make Switch 2 games generally more expensive. He told the publication that the price increase was a long time coming.
“It seems expensive,” he explained, “But I remember walking to Woolworths spending £50 on Nintendo 64 [games], and that was nearly 30 years ago. And games need to get more expensive. As a retailer, we’re selling games for the same price we were selling them 10 years ago, but our costs keep going up [and] publisher costs are going up. Bold move [to go to] £75, but it does need to happen.”
