PSx

Transferable licence.

They can be sold, gifted, inherited, etc.

Its the same concept as a stub game disc which requires a full online install (something Xbox used for cross-gen one/series titles).

Its nothing like the account tied physical sales they proposed at the Xbox one announcement.

Switch 2 game-key cards won’t be account- or console-locked

What? Of course not … that’s why they are in the form of game cards.

I don’t think he has a great understanding of Australian prices.

The current MKW price of au$120 looks high but if you remove our GST and convert to USD with the average exchange rate over the last 12 months its equivalent to us$70.85. (Donky Kong is au$110 or us$65).

We are currently at a low point with our dollar so the conversion for MKW today would be us$66.49. (DK would be us$61).

Compared to the prices I’m seeing internationally it looks like Australia is getting relatively generous prices from Nintendo.

Except Mario Kart has had its fair share of paid post release content lately. We can’t expect it to be the one-off purchase it once was.

As a bundled launch title I expect most launch window sales will be digital. There won’t be 2nd hand game cards on the market in any volume until after they drop the bundle.

If it sells out, expect a price drop in a few years

Switch sold out in 2017, and now the same basic Neon model is selling for the same price in 2025.

In Australia we had an au$90 price tier with only 6 titles:

• Breath of the Wild
• Pokkén Tournament DX
• Fire Emblem Warriors
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate
• Tears of the Kingdom

All their other AAA titles were au$80, for example:

• Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Pokémon Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet
• Super Mario Party / Superstars / Jamboree
• New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe / Super Mario Wonder

Then smaller releases were placed at $70, for example:

• 1-2-Switch
• Go Vacation
• Fitness Boxing 2/ 3
• Miitopia
• WarioWare: Get It Together / Move it

You can see they used the $90 tier quite aggressively early in the piece and then scaled back significantly with almost 5 years between Smash Bros and Tears of the Kingdom.

At the same time they made sure the Marios (Kart, 3d, 2d, Party, Sports), Pokemons and other franchises with broad all-ages appeal were priced in the middle at $80.

To be honest I’m a bit worried about the pricing for Super Mario Kart World, the previous one was the beat selling Switch title and if they come out of the gate with high sales they may take the wrong lessons and try to lock in that au$120 price (a 50% increase!).

On the other hand they may just be price anchoring with the bundle. Having the standalone console priced at au$700 and the bundle at au$770 will let the consumer find ways to justify the purchase, they might say the console is worth $700 so the game is only $70, or they might argue the game is $120 so the console is really only $650. Either way will make them feel better about giving Nintendo the money.

I suppose the best outcome for the consumer would be for most people to get SMKW in the bundle and then hopefully the next title they release at that price point has lacklustre sales. If they see they sell more units at a lower price it can be a good outcome for everyone.

I don‘t see 90% discounts in the Nintendo shop

Not 1st party sure, but there is a weekly deal cycle where 3rd party publishers compete to stand out.

https://www.dekudeals.com/games?filter%5Bcritic_score%5D=70&filter%5Bplatform%5D=switch&filter%5Bformat%5D=digital&filter%5Bdiscount%5D=discounted

These are the top 5 sellers on Switch:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate
• The legend of Zelda:Breath of the Wild
• Super Mario Odyssey

These links take you to a price tracker with a chart showing historical prices. The RRP of each of these has been static, and discounts are short and infrequent.

In a break from form Nintendo hasn’t released a budget “Selects” label for older titles this generation.

Their emulators have always been proprietary. The waters were a little muddied by the NES/SNES Classic consoles using a Linux OS but the emulators were their own code.

Their FOSS code is made available when required and is published here:

https://support.nintendo.com/jp/oss/index.html

Interesting to see reasons for where compatibility is physically impossible:

1. The console is a different shape and can’t fit the LABO frames
2. The Joy-Con 2 are a different shape and can’t fit the Ring-Con or Leg Strap.
3. The Jon-Con 2 don’t have the IR Motion Camera
4. The Jon-Con 2 rumble is weaker than Joy Con

Well spotted!

I missed that while i was reading the supported resolutions on the screen.

So this thing only takes microSD Express cards?

Are there any larger than 256GB on the market?

I have a 1TB card in my Switch 1 and I would rather not downgrade the capacity if there are any options.

Edit: all good, lexar is offering 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB cards.

https://americas.lexar.com/product/lexar-play-pro-microsdxc-express-card/

For Google Play the requirements are:

• the family manager is over 18 and has a payment method on file (they manage the family wallet).
• the family members are in the family managers country, (and if under 13 the account is created by the manager).

I only have direct experience with managing a kid under 13, in that case I have created the account for him and never entered a payment method on his account. For any purchases he wants to make via the “family wallet” it needs my direct approval, which can be granted by using an app on my device or directly entering my password onto his. After either of us has made a purchase we have a “share with family library” toggle that can share the title with the other family member. Note that this only applies to direct title purchases from the store, if a feature is locked behind IAP it can’t be shared. We have his accompanied locked so he needs my approval for any purchases (including free apps) but this is not required by the platform.

For child accounts the family manager can choose between requiring approval for each of the following on each child account:

• All content
• All purchases using the family payment method
• Only in-app purchases
• No approval required

I presume the for adult family members the family manager only has control of the Family Wallet but I don’t have direct experience to confirm.

For child accounts the trust might extend to blocking purchases in the general case and having the kids send purchase requests to the parent for approval.

Of course this leaves the child account restricted is such a manner it would be unappealing if there wasn’t an actual parent-child relationship IRL.

And it’s been given: MA15+ Strong Horror Violence

Its a strategic time for this regime to be implemented. With a sequel console on the horizon a lot of households are going to become 2 switch families soon. Anything to make customers more comfortable spending money will speed the uptake.

For PlayStation I liked they way they let each user nominate 1 primary PS4 and 1 primary PS5. They both could play the PS4 library without restriction so the old console was a perfect hand-me-down.

In comparison for Xbox they have maintained that the whole platform is homogeneous with each account only allowed one home console at a time be it One or Series.

Its still missing physical object’s killer app: permanent license transferability.

With physical objects I can buy them from others, give them to friends, etc and that transfer can be permanent.

All of this lend and automatically return is just a mechanism to block permanent license transfer.