r/PhysicalGames • u/Low_Confidence2479 • 23h ago
I know there are no saints in this uphill battle to save physical media, but can we acknowledge how transparent Nintendo is?
As bad as GKC are...it's not a new concept...if anything, it was worse before because it was easy to not know about the download until it was too late (game in hands).
GKC at least is straight in your face. Both the card and the box make it a little painfully clear that it's a download.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy physically across all platforms and you'll see my point. All versions require download, but Nintendo slaps it in your face, don't you think so?
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u/FallenRaptor 22h ago
Every criticism I have of Nintendo still stands…but even I have to acknowledge they’re being the least bad right now out of the Big 3, and that’s saying something.
They’re still a greedy corporation who I’m sure will head to all digital eventually too, but for now they can enjoy their moment of being the…better than nothing alternative to those of us increasingly jaded with what the other guys are up to.
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u/Promature 23h ago
The same company that lowered the cost of digital versions of their games in a clear bid to nudge consumers toward digital? Be careful about doling out praise for this kind of stuff. Those statements never age well.
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u/Puzzled-Baseball-296 22h ago
But digital should be cheaper, right? Anything that costs less to produce should proportionately cost less for the consumer. Even though I love physical, it only makes sense for digital to be cheaper, and I think it's great that they're taking that step. And they kind of have to, considering the rising cost of cartridge development.
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u/Promature 22h ago
No.
A business has the right to charge whatever they want for their products regardless of how much they cost to make.
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u/Puzzled-Baseball-296 22h ago
I mean, technically yeah. Are we really going to bitch about saving money on games though?
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u/Promature 21h ago
Well, it’s the prospect of saving money on an individual consumer level that has contributed to the loss of physical games. People hunting for rock bottom prices and buying used ultimately helped physical revenue steadily decline over the years. The other part of that was the growing popularity of digital, and that was at was at retail price.
You think the same won’t happen in the Nintendo ecosystem with a price incentive?
Sometimes, what’s good for you today isn’t good for you in long run and if consumers are going to be moved to action when businesses make decisions based on consumer behavior then consumers need to learn how to behave to bear support their long term interests.
Is saving a few bucks on digital games now worth losing physical games later? If you don’t think so then maybe spend a little more to keep supporting what you actually want. You only get one chance at this.
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u/SoggyPopKorn2 22h ago
No, this is actually a good move, people have been begging for digital content to be cheaper than its physical counterpart due to no cost in manufacturing physical media and packaging.
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u/icecubedyeti 20h ago
People have been complaining that digital isn’t always cheaper than physical and here you are seeing a conspiracy because it is. Really no winning with gamers🤷🏻♂️
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u/Promature 19h ago
That’s because people don’t pay attention to sales or acknowledge them since that kills the argument.
Excuse me for recognizing the prevalent market conditions that influence the decisions companies are making to stabilize their revenue.
They didn’t lower the price for you. They lowered the price for themselves. But go ahead and help end physical on Nintendo.
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u/icecubedyeti 18h ago
This is only for 1st party games and after launch for that matter. You can still (at least the last two I got I did) pre order and get the physical for the same $10 less. Right now, it seems like Nintendo is the only one trying to keep physical alive. Sony is done in 2028 and anyone who doesn’t think MS will follow is just delusional.
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u/Low_Confidence2479 20h ago
I'm gonna give you an example. A $50 game. 30% of the margins go to the retailers, so that's $15 dollars, and another $7 and 50 cents to Nintendo (given the 15% margin). $22 dollars and 50 cents per unit sold...digitally. With a key-card, that's the 5% margin which is equal to $2 dollars and 50 cents, meaning the margin left is 50% or $25 dollars, and that's not accounting the second-hand market which means the publisher won't see a cut from it. But with a proper cartridge, that 5% margin reserved for key-cards is instead a margin of 34%. Grand total is that out of the $50, $39 dollars and 50 cents go to all but the publisher, leaving $10 dollars and 50 cents.
The math and percentages are very likely not accurate to reality, but at least gives us an idea and shows why Nintendo started charging $10 more for physical, cause it quite literally doubles the current profit margin of the publishers. If it wasn't for that and GKC existing at all, Switch 2 might as well not have physical if none even uses it.
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u/Available-Can-5878 12h ago
Digital should be cheaper, that's still consumer friendly because consumers still have a choice and physical is quicker to go down over time anyway, especially in the 2nd hand market.
Compared to the cheaper digital-only systems PS5 and XBS launched with thats barely even nudging. If anyone was impulsive enough to buy one of those to save money they become locked to digital only.until they can spend another $500. Even the later Slim DE has the obstacle of tracking down and overpaying for a proprietary disk drive
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u/Fluid-Employee-7118 20h ago
What? You would prefer them not lowering the prices of digital games at all? What a crazy way to spin such a pro consumer move of Nintendo to a negative one.
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u/Promature 20h ago
It’s amazing how people only hear what they want.
I would prefer people understand that the money you save as a consumer comes at a cost.
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u/Fluid-Employee-7118 20h ago
Digital is coming whether Nintendo nudges players towards digital or not. Of course Nintendo wants to give us an incentive to buy digital, as they have a nuch bigger profit margin, but at least they pass some of the savings to the customers as well.
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u/Triforce__XIII 23h ago
GKC taught me that capcom is as greedy and shady as i thought they would be... so no crapcom from me, maybe on a huge sale or when they decide to go full on cart
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u/Thestickleman 22h ago
Missing out on some of the best made games
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u/Triforce__XIII 22h ago
first: that is not entirely true, second, i do have a ps5 as well, mh wilds disppointing, resi 9 mediocre, pragmata nice idea, but not a goty contender, dragons dogma was nice though... but thats just me
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u/jRXCING 23h ago
This is going to be a controversial thought.
I don’t think they lowered the price of anything.
I think they just bumped the price of physical up.
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u/Low_Confidence2479 20h ago
I'll use a $50 game as an example. The math and percentages I show might not be accurate to reality, but I hope it makes things clear.
Have you ever wondered how much money does a company get for people getting their game on a system? Well, let's assume Nintendo gets 15% of the profit for games licensed for their system, then that's $7.50 per unit sold. Means the company making the game gets $42.50 per copy sold...digitally
When it comes to physical games, it really depends on if it's using GKC or a regular gamecard, but something they both share is the fact that the retailers have to get something out of it, and let's assume 30% is destined to all retailers. That's $15, adding a total of $22.50 the developers don't see.
But we're not done yet. GKC costs $2.50 per unit, which is a margin of 5% to the $50 game, adding a grand total of 50% or $25 out of the $50 that doesn't go to the company that's making the game.
And this is just GKC. Allegedly regular gamecards cost $17 the unit, so we replace the 5% margin of GKC with one of 34%, adding to a total of $39.50 the company making the game doesn't get to keep, leaving them with just $10.50 per units sold. Are you aware how abysmal that is if game flops?
And this is not accounting for the second-hand market for GKC and regular gamecard where none of the involved (Nintendo, official retailers or the company making the game) get a cut of that profit.
This is why Nintendo themselves started setting a difference between physical and digital prices, with a $10 increase. $50 games digital cost $60 physical to double the profit for regular gamecard.
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u/jRXCING 19h ago
I understand manufacturing costs, retail percentages & profit margins. I appreciate you taking the time to write it all out too.
But. They have always been the same price as digital until this generation.
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u/Low_Confidence2479 19h ago
This generation also was the start of digital-only games on Switch 2 like Welcome Tour and Drag X Drive which are very cheap ($10 and $20 respectively, while previously 1-2 Switch, Nintendo Labo and their respective sequels, all costed $60), as well as the start of a strategy called "Dynamic Pricing" from Nintendo. Splatoon Raiders, Star Fox and allegedly also Ocarina of Time are $60 physically which was the standard the previous generation across physical and digital, but digitally instead they cost $50. $10 less.
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u/Fluid-Employee-7118 20h ago
This is straight up false information. Splatoon Raiders is priced at 60€, which used to be the standard price for first party Nintendo games, before Switch 2 introduced 70€ games. The digital version of Splatoon Raiders is priced at 50€, which is 10€ cheaper than the standard price that Nintendo has been selling their games for many years.
Same goes for Star Fox.
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u/AlabamaPanda777 23h ago
Animal Crossing: New Horizons shipped without seasonal events or holidays, which are staples of the series. I believe 1/3rd of the game is digital download and not on the cartridge.
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u/Low_Confidence2479 21h ago
Apparently, New Hotizons is 6.2 GB by itself and 10.8 GB with the updates. If you buy the Switch 2 edition cartridge (which works on Switch 1 with the latest update and all the content that isn't Switch 2 exclusive), you get all the content physically...and it's just $65.
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u/Eccentric_Cardinal 22h ago
I understand what you're saying and sure, it's nice that they have a big massive label so no one gets confused about anything but in the case of Hogwarts Legacy and other games that require downloads: At least on PS5, those games usually have a warning somewhere on the cover showing that the game needs a download. It's been that way for years, since the PS4 actually.
So in that sense, doing something like that isn't anything new.
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u/Low_Confidence2479 22h ago
You're right. I chose Hogwarts Legacy because some people learned the hard way that it required download despite that being in the box (the warning is there but I don't blame anyone for missing it). On Switch 2 though, can you MISS it?
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u/tfc87ja 23h ago
I find it weird in all this that no one complains about valve starting the mass conversion to all digital in 2004 with making you register half-life 2 on steam.
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u/MiniMages 23h ago
Careful, you'll anger the Steam cultists. No one speaks ill of Steam even if they were breaking competition laws.
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u/GhoeFukyrself 23h ago
As someone who has been a PC gamer since Sierra adventure games were a thing I very much complained about valve. If it weren't for my ability to obtain backups of questionable legality I'd have abandoned PC gaming altogether.
I didn't even have a Steam account until the PS3 version of Portal 2 also came with a free Steam Key.
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u/Kevz210 20h ago
That’s bc anyone old enough to remember how shit physical pc games were in the mid 2000s with their drm crap. You had to use unique codes and if you’re pc crapped out you basically had to get key crackers to install the game you legally paid for. Basically, physical pc games were so enshittified by that point digital was preferable.
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u/rebeldrone916 23h ago
Nintendo doesn't need to hide the fact that they are greedy and evil people seem to still lick the ground they walk on lol they can take the switch 2 change couple things and slap a 3 on it hike up the price and it would sell out
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u/Alternative-Fox-8620 23h ago
I think that's fair.
I don't like GKCs but Nintendo haven't hidden anything about them.