Switch 2 Cuts Digital Prices as Big Third-Party AAA Ports Land

Pricing has been one of the biggest talking points around the Nintendo Switch 2 lately, and it goes well beyond the usual digital-versus-physical debate. Nintendo has started doing something fairly new with its first-party games: it charges less for the digital copy than the boxed one. If you've wondered why some prices seem inconsistent, the company has explained why it's worth walking through.

Nintendo executive Bill van Zyl spoke directly to the issue. According to him, the tag game's price comes from a mix of factors. The company considers the value you get, how many hours of play you can reasonably expect, how complex the game is, and how much money went into making it.

Each title goes through its own review process.

Those expectations are already built into the price you see across the Nintendo Switch 2 lineup. That answer matters because of the confusion around a few specific releases. Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave costs $80 physically and $70 digitally, while The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which comes from a much bigger franchise, sits at $70 physically and $60 digitally.

On the surface, that looks backward, since Zelda is the bigger name. But the explanation about complexity and hours of play fits. Nintendo is still weighing those factors, so franchise size isn't the only thing that counts. What the game actually offers counts too.

When it comes to playtime, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is the largest and most expansive game Nintendo has released on the Nintendo Switch 2 so far. That will probably stay true until something like a 3D Mario shows up, or Pokémon Winds and Waves, which is a joint effort between Game Freak and Nintendo, or maybe a new Xenoblade.

Even those may not match it in complexity, because Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is split into four campaigns, and each one is roughly the length of a regular game. On top of that, the game packs in hundreds of voice actors, voiced scenes, and other content, so a lot is going on.

Even with that reasoning, a $70 physical and $60 digital split would have suited the game better.

There is one more angle to consider, though. Intelligent Systems is not a first-party studio. It is a separate company, essentially second-party if you want to use the slang term, and it works directly with Nintendo on plenty of projects. Salaries and similar costs can differ from what Nintendo pays its own staff, and salary and time are the biggest expenses in game development.

How long it takes to make the game, how much each person is paid, and how many people you need all feed into the final price. That is a genuine factor, not just a guess. Still, the digital discount is a welcome change on the Nintendo Switch 2. Digital games should cost less because you don't have to manufacture a cartridge, ship anything, or pay for fuel to move it around.

All of those costs disappear on the digital side, so the lower price makes sense. Nintendo is also the 1st first-party company to say outright that this is the standard going forward: $10 cheaper digitally than physically. Microsoft and Sony do not do this, and they keep the same price across the board.

Nintendo used to do the same, but that changed around Yoshi. Yoshi was the first game to follow the new approach, which is why people still ask about Mario Tennis and why it is cheaper. The same goes for Donkey Kong and Mario Kart World.

Anything released before Yoshi is not moving, while anything from Yoshi onward carries that $10 gap between digital and physical.

It is a good move overall, though nobody wants to see a ton of $80 games, and physical releases will probably hit that number at times. In the US and other regions, you can often find them for less. Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave was $70 at Walmart, and plenty of other stores price match it, so you can get it for $70 in most places if you would rather skip the $80 tag.

Pricing is only part of the story. Big third-party releases are also coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, and that is great to see. Earlier in the year, someone argued that third-party AAA games felt more exciting on the Switch 1. It is hard to see where that idea comes from. Think about the big, huge games that landed during the first year and a half or so of that console. There was some, sure.

Doom from 2016 was there, and so was Skyrim, though that one is older. Neither of them is more exciting than what is arriving now. The file sizes are pretty beefy, too. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 completely skipped the Switch 1. The series was last seen on a Nintendo system with Black Ops II and Ghosts on the Wii U.

Now Call of Duty is back, and the install will take up 84.9 GB. Resident Evil 4, 2, and 3 are coming over as well, at 29 GB and 14 GB. The main point is that major AAA titles are running on the Nintendo Switch 2 at decent quality. Call of Duty seems to be running rather poorly, but the horror franchise is the bigger deal here.

Resident Evil 4 is the standout, running as a proper, uncompromised version.

Resident Evil 4 isn't a cloud version or some other odd build, and it isn't completely compromised compared to what you see on PS4. It's a solid version of the game, and that is huge. Portable horror works well here. The remakes, in particular, are close to perfect portable games, since they were built on older systems, as we have seen before.

The fourth game is ideal for putting on a headset, turning on 3D audio, and playing in handheld mode, yet it plays just as well on a TV as a full console game, as it did on the GameCube. For Nintendo, landing Call of Duty and the horror remakes, along with the Lego Harry Potter Collection, is a big win on the Nintendo Switch 2.

Lego games were on the Switch and the Wii before, but it is still good to see such a wide variety of games coming through. Remasters, remakes, rereleases, new games, and big first-party titles all play a part, and a system needs all of them to dominate and rise. That is what Nintendo has to do to get anywhere near what the Switch 1 achieved.

That system was crazy because it didn't have these kinds of games, but it was cheap, all things considered, compared to many other systems out there, including the Switch Lite. Look at what the Nintendo Switch 2 is doing, and it has blown away its predecessor in its first year and a half.

Beyond Resident Evil, even more third-party AAA games are already lined up.

Spend around 125 hours in that Fire Emblem game, and you will still find plenty of third-party games waiting: Lies of P, The Witcher 3, Dragon's Dogma, Pragmata, and Resident Evil Requiem. It is game after game of massive AAA titles that were simply absent on the Switch 1.

You have to give credit to the Nintendo Switch 2, because it is getting significantly more content. Some of the ports could be better, but Nintendo is doing the best it can. Mainline Final Fantasy is coming over too, with Final Fantasy VII Remake, followed by Rebirth and Revelation next year.

Monster Hunter Wilds drops this year, and Resident Evil – Code: Veronica is on the way.   There is going to be a lot more coming through. With all of this lined up, there is plenty to look forward to. Big new releases are landing on the Nintendo Switch 2, major games are showing up wherever you want to play them, and first-party titles have a clearer pricing approach.