Nintendo Needs Drama to Survive

There are few companies that get to hold the mantle of having international acclaim on the level of being able to affect international culture. Nintendo is one of them. For decades, Nintendo has put out console after console, game after game, and with every release has brought people together. They can say that they truly changed the landscape of the gaming industry and the culture. Yet, here we are in the year 2025 with Nintendo just having announced the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 and seemingly overnight, that legacy has been squashed. Now, I am not going to spend this time talking about all of the details of the Switch 2 and its capabilities. If you want to know all the information there is to know about the console, go watch my latest episode of Right Click on www.rightsidemedia.org titled "Nintendo's Blunder or Bolster?". However, this is discussing Nintendo from the cultural approach and what they've done to the industry in comparison to what they're doing now.

From Wikipedia, Nintendo has been releasing consoles since 1977 as seen below.

Home consoles

• Color TV-Game (1977–1983)

  • Family Computer and Nintendo Entertainment System (1983 and 1985)

  • Super Famicom and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990 and 1991)

  • Nintendo 64 (1996 and 1997)

  • GameCube (2001)

  • Wii (2006)

  • Wii U (2012)

• Handheld consoles

  • Game & Watch (1980–1991)

  • Game Boy (1989)

  • Game Boy Color (1998)

  • Game Boy Advance (2001)

  • Pokémon Mini (2001)

  • Nintendo DS (2004)

  • Nintendo 3DS (2011)

• Hybrid consoles

  • Virtual Boy (1995)

  • Nintendo Switch (2017)

  • Nintendo Switch 2 (2025)

This is so important because they have literal decades of gaming devices that have produced titles like The Legend of Zelda, everything Mario and all of the supporting Mario characters, Donkey Kong, Animal Crossing, Metro and more iconic characters than I have space to put here. This is decades of history and cultural impact and all fostered with genuine love by Nintendo. They are the only gaming company I can think of that has been around for so long that it can be a consistent bridge for generations of gamers. Here is why I am bringing all this up:

Nintendo has lost it's mind.

Nintendo, with the release of the Switch 2, has officially made the jump from passionate development to sacrificing its legacy for the bottom line. Again, I am not going to go over every detail, as I already did that, but knowing that information now makes me realize just how much Nintendo has lost it's way. Every accessory that they have announced with the Switch 2 is outright price gouging and then once you take into consideration what they have done with the price of the games themselves, the wheels fall off the cart and that's really the big ticket item here.

I just mentioned how big of a cultural impact Nintendo has had on an international scale and this is still important if for no other reason than the fact that gaming industry will follow the influence that the company puts out. In recent history, Nintendo brought the price of their games up from roughly $50 to $60 and the industry followed. Then another $10, making the industry average $70. If I were to go right now and purchase a AAA game on my PC, Xbox, or Playstation, I would have to pay $70 -- mind you we're talking about one singular game. Now, here we sit having just come off the heels of Nintendo announcing that digital download games will now be $80 and if you want to buy it physically then it will be $90. An egregious change.

This matters for more reasons than just money. Again, the industry follows and Nintendo knows full well that they can strong arm the rest of the industry into monetizing nearly everything. On top of just the money aspect is the fact that if you buy a physical copy of a game now, not only will it be $10 more, Nintendo has openly said that the game is not stored on the physical copy, rather it is just a key to download the game digitally from the Switch's storefront. So after downloading it, it doesn't matter if you have the physical game.

This is one example, albeit a big one, of how an 800lbs gorilla in the industry can make a few small decisions that have a massive impact. With news coming that GTA6 may be $100 or more, it seems like this trend of overcharging for games is on its way. Vote with your dollar, folks. That is the only way this stops.