Summary
- Nintendo Switch 2’s Welcome Tour is priced at $9.99, despite essentially being a tech demo.
- Bill Trinen of Nintendo of America believes the price is good value for what players get.
- The Switch 2 could be even more expensive depending on the economic ramifications of Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
Nintendo is currently weathering a storm of negative reception regarding pricing. Although fans are excited about the Nintendo Switch 2‘s powerful hardware, the pricing strategy of the console and its games have caused consternation among the player base.
The Nintendo Switch 2 is priced at $449.99, $150 more than the price of the Nintendo Switch at launch. Meanwhile, the system’s launch titles, Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, are set to cost $80 and $70 respectively. The former is attracting significant criticism, as it costs $10 more than the most expensive Switch game, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
However, the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour‘s pricing is one that has baffled Nintendo fans. The software is basically a showcase of the new features and specifications of the Switch 2, designed as a “more soulless and corporate” version of the PlayStation 5’s Astro’s Playroom. However, the controversial part of Welcome Tour is that it costs $9.99, while Astro’s Playroom is free.
Controversial Pricing
Welcome Tour is a set of “mini-games” intended to show off the hardware, but there really isn’t a lot to them, according to our editor-in-chief Stacey Henley who went hands-on with the game: “I have no idea who would buy this, or who should,” she wrote. Fans have also joked that Welcome Tour could be the first-ever Nintendo game to sell “zero copies.“
However, in an interview with IGN, Nintendo of America’s vice president of product and player experience Bill Trinen disagrees with the sentiment that Welcome Tour isn’t worth its price tag.
“It’s a little bit more maybe than you were able to see on the show floor. It’s a pretty robust piece of software. There’s a lot of great detail in there,” Trinen began. “For some people, I think there are people who are particularly interested in the tech and specs of the system and things like that, for them I think it’s going to be a great product. It’s really for people that want more information about the system rather than necessarily a quick intro to everything it does. And for that reason and just the amount of care and work people put into it, I think it was decided that, ‘Yeah, this feels likee $9.99 is not an exorbitant price. It feels like good value for what you’re getting out of the product.'”
The Switch 2 could become even more expensive depending on the market implications of Donald Trump’s tariffs, which are not factored into the $449.99 price tag.
