Shawn Layden justifies gouging gamers in the name of Exclusives. Barf.

https://tech4gamers.com/nintendo-charge-80-switch-2-exclusivity/

Ex Sony exec Shawn Layden tells us Nintendo is justified with the 80 dollar asking price because their first party games are exclusive. How wonderful for gamers around the world... Step right up and spend top dollar on multiple pieces of hardware with the same games, except for these small handful of games we will reward you with by insisting you pay more for... Ew... Talk about ending my run of Nintendo support.

Its amazing gamers don't realize the lit stick of dynamite in their mouth following the failed exclusive game model. They line up for it in fact. The brain is funny...

Congrats to those "exclusive" pro Corp gamers out there getting milked hardest of all... This is all really paying off for corpor... Er, I mean, gamers around the world...

The "exclusivity tax" is now a thing in gaming.

Makes zero sense.

Certain cows on here will justify this

When a game sells well based on the quality and reasonable pricing merits, it's a far better strategy for making its money back.

Insisting on raising the prices to make that money back is short-term scrub shit that can easily backfire if consumers deem it not worth the price and a significant loss in potential customers.

It blows my mind just how many of these big companies translate their short-term gains into long-term strategies thinking this formula will last them forever.

Companies need to PAY ATTENTION to negative backlash that's picking up a narrative beyond their control. Even if their said products are still selling out for the time being, in spite of the negative backlash. These companies continue to ignore blatant warning signals and the calm before the storm when they ignore the backlash and push for the "see? Look at our preorders. They're selling out still despite our prices" and sticking lid over the backlash and further ignoring them. It will inevitably catch up to these companies washed up in their short-term hubris, and potentially irreparable if they continue to ignore the warning signs.

These companies appear to be incompetent over planning for the next 10 years and things in the Now seem to be all they think about.

Just look at the Walt Disney Company. They thought they had the billion dollar movie down to a formula and something that would last them forever, and they thought they could continue to get away with anti-consumer practices. Disney is eating shit more than anything these days.

Don't go the Disney way.

80 dollar ps6 exclusives then? Call it?

I don’t get why the exclusivity matters. Doesn’t the industry want to raise game prices? If this $80 price point works out then other companies will follow suit and raise their prices to match at least regardless if they are exclusive or not.

The problem I have is that there are zero games I'm willing to invest in to keep this exclusive gouging tactic going so Nintendo has entirely erased me as a customer. I'd rsther eat nails than sell out my fellow gamers by being complicit to something so lame. This is gaming people literally saying pay me more because it's exclusive not because of its quality. It's effin gross.

Gamers now get to pay the "exclusivity tax" and that is the worst thing I've heard in this hobby for a very long time... They're taking a broken model and doubling down on our collective stupidity and lack of self control. Ew.

@TheEroica: Yeah I get that. I just don’t understand why Shawn Layden can say that Nintendo can charge $80 because their games are exclusive. GTA VI will probably charge this or even more now and it certainly won’t be exclusive. Other third parties like EA and Ubisoft will very likely also follow suit as well. Also Nintendo isn’t charging $80 right now for a bunch of their other games and those games are just as exclusive as Mario Kart World.

Exclusivity is and always has been, in my opinion, incredibly anti-consumer. The best scenario is that, with some exceptions, all games are available on all platforms, and hardware manufacturers compete for our business by giving us either the best hardware, the best price, or a mix of both. There are plenty of other ways to compete as well without debasing one's platform with petty exclusivity.

Exclusivity is just...bad. Bad bad bad.

Best-case scenario, you pay a premium to game on a platform, and then pay a premium to play a game that is only available on that platform. If you're lucky, you get the best of both.

Worse-case scenario you're being corralled into a gilded pen to play on an inferior platform because the game you want to play is only available on that platform. And the game isn't that good because the publisher can afford to buy the IP, but doesn't want to reinvest in that IP because they have what they need.

Rarely do we get the former; more often than not, as of late, we get the latter.

That could be seen as conspiracy. Or something like that. I forgot what it's called, but the oil companies used to do this back in the day. They'd basically all conspire together and say "Hey we all need to raise our prices, but it only works if we all do it".

That said, I think there are ways to do this legally so probably going to see a price increase regardless.

I don't know if I outright object to the price increase. I mean, I don't want to pay more, and I hate to argue in the publisher/developer's favor, but game prices have been fairly stagnant for the last 30 years.

I remember paying 50-60 dollars for a physical copy of a game in the 90's.

Now I'm paying 60-70 in 2025.

That's actually pretty reasonable when weighed against the increase we've seen in other areas. Movie ticket prices have more than doubled, food prices are insane (you're lucky to leave McDonald's spending less than $15 these days...), and so on and so forth.

The exclusivity is nonsense, though. I'd happily pay for Nintendo games I just don't want to pay for a Switch lol. And I would never buy a Switch, so the whole "We have exclusives to sell hardware" argument is bullshit. You want my $80 or you want 0$, Nintendo?

@TheEroica: In saying his reasoning make zero sense.

Nintendo hardware and software is a generation or two behind everyone else's and their online service is decades behind yet they want to place their games at a premium price because ... ... .. .. Mario?.

there's little justification for many of today's AAA titles to be $70 and there's zero justification for something like Mario Kart to be $80~$90.. this is just corporate hubris and greed.. plain and simple..

With all that said, I still think games cost too much to make these days. I'd rather see game development costs reduced, more frequent releases, and shorter games. They could then pass this savings on to the consumer, and would still see a nice profit. We'd see more games, newer IP's, and perhaps some more innovation as well.

Won't happen, though; the AAA publisher space is all about whales these days, they'd rather spend $200 million and get $1 billion return than spend $20 million and get $500 million. The juggernaut can't be stopped. Late-stage capitalism is the name of the game. Growth more important than profit.

Not in the industry, though, so I'm just talking out my ass 😋

@mrbojangles25: AI can help reduce game development cost and time.

Say the people riding Gabens dick any opportunity they get.

Unfortunately, the cheapskate gamers think the avalanch of garbage products with all of it's consequences should be the norm. Yesyes, for all the gamers around the world, kumbaya my lord, kumbaya... cringe hypocrisy.

"They can get away with it, lol"

Yep and I am all in favor of AI as a tool, I just don't want to see it as any sort of replacement for creativity (to a certain point).

There's a game I'm playing that being made by like one or two people and they use AI as voice actors. I'm kind of torn on it because it's a small project and obviously AI is cost-effective, but if a larger corporation was doing this I'd take issue with it because I think if they can afford real voice actors, they should so so.

Is that a double standard? Kind of? But at the same time, I think allowances should be made.

Would love to see AI used to give NPC's more life, more interactive with players. Would be kind of neat to see the old text-based adventure games make a comeback, where you speak into a microphone and the game responds in realistic fashion to your very detailed command,request, question, etc.

This is great news for indie devs since they can now charge more.🙃

Yes that must be it. It's pc gamers fault that the exclusive game tax is a thing... The fictional people you just mentioned must be the real problem here.

This.... I understand inflation is a thing, but being fiscally responsible for your product matters to the overall. Less expensive games also mean more risk which the industry needs... It also means potentially quicker turn around and maybe even more projects.

Spending hundreds of millions on a game ensures it will be paint by number as to be inclusive to the most gamers... No risk, no surprise.... No fun.

Not sure what difference being exclusive makes to the price of the game. They're talking about GTA6 being $100 and it's not exclusive.

I think if a game was a first party exclusive then it would make sense to price it lower because they don't have to pay a % to the platform holder.

This just sounds like Layden trying to say the right things to take Bowser's job after a fumble, lol

Right. It's catering to the lowest common denominator, which is bad...while also sort of setting the standard for the industry, which is even worse. We see this in a lot of things, but especially music: a lot of pop music is designed more via psychology and marketing than actual artistic expression. Does 3/4 timing illicit a better response in people than 4/4? Does this bass tone trigger more dopamine than that one? Etc etc...

My dream is to see more "pilot studios" or "pop up studios" as subsidiaries of larger developers and publishers. Would be nice if for every large project, a publishers takes a team of 20, gives them $5 million and 18 months, and says "Make a game you want to make" and we see what happens.

Game incubators, if you will.

Ideally, we get a game like Valheim, Minecraft, a neat boomer shooter, or some 10-20 hours game of whatever type.

Worst-case, the game goes nowhere and we learn some lessons from it.

Orp erhaps the game shows promise and it get's folded into the larger developer to become a new AAA title.

I have a hard one Accepting them at 70 so if it goes up $10 more I am calling it quits

Cows rallied and defended Sony for increasing prices instead of calling them out.......the door was open... Nintendo just stepped in

I mean, out of the big 3, Nintendo is the most reasonable with that price tag IMO but first, just hear me out. Nintendo goes out of its way to make sure its exclusives aren't rushed out the door by not releasing half-ass done and when I pay top money, I expect my exclusive game to be 99.9% (nothing is ever 100% so let's be real) done and no BS on launch. That's what Shawn is saying, you guys. Nintendo themselves don't often release exclusive games every month, they release them 1st quarter and half quarter per year. Enough time to save money for the next one such as Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong: Bananaza, and Metroid Prime Beyond at the end of the year is why Nintendo can charge $80. Also, Switch 2 can now support 60fps+ and that was the winning point for me.

The main and I mean, the main problem is the 3rd-party developers thinking their games are worth charging beyond $70 but what they don't know is gamers expect perfect 99.9% done on the game but lately, we've seen games launch in a buggy mess and that's the root of the problem. If these companies just take their time with the game, it wouldn't be a problem. Games like Dragon Age: Veilguard was definitely near perfect and I didn't run into bugs (barely) and it ran so damn well on my PC, it's been a very long time since I enjoyed a perfect game launch. If 3rd-party wants to increase the damn prices, then they better make sure their games aren't a mess on launch and if it needs a delay, delay it.

Shawn Layden's message is justified. All you gamers need to vote with your own damn wallets and see what Nintendo exclusives are worth your money and time. For me, it's Donkey Kong: Bananaza and Metroid Prime: Beyond. Mario Kart World is a bonus for me as I'm not exactly interested but since I'm getting the Bundle and making it half the price vs paying for it alone, it just makes sense to buy the Bundle hence Mario Kart World is a bonus on my part.

Nintendo consoles exclusives only. PC for everything else but Nintendo games. It's just that simple...for me that is and if you're smart, you'll save yourself some money in the long run😉 (At least with 3rd-party, their games in prices go down in a month or so. Nintendo exclusives, not so much)

Given that we already pay 80 euro for games over here in europe. *Extremely* likely.

Nintendo, Sony, MS, Ubi, EA etc can charge whatever they want, it's up to gamers to speak with their wallets, not their pea brains.

For example, MS was charging $109 here in Australia for Forza Motorsport (a game everyone here in the know, knows it's my jam) however I never bought it, I waited 5 months, and the game was reduced to $59 and I bought it. Hardly any gamer has any self-control, because if they did, we could control prices, but nope their mate is buying so it's a case of FOMO, it's like pre-ordering a digital game because they think digital distribution is going to runout somehow 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Moral of the story, gamers are dumb as 💩

@last_lap: Sure, that's why you can preorder the Deluxe edition of the new DOOM game for $164, or $99 if you want only part of the content. People spend ludicrous amounts on incomplete games, and then pay more to complete them.

Fortunately Nintendo rarely dabbles in that, so you're still probably paying less for Switch 2 games in the long run.

Also, the "just wait" strategy doesn't really work with Nintendo. It's like with Baldurs Gate 3 or Factorio - if you have a quality product that stays in high demand for many years, you never need to do a sale.

I know we don't always agree, but here we do.... The lack of self control and need for day 1 consumption is really a killer in the fight against predatory tactics.... The market is whatever people will pay, sadly buying half cooked day 1 products at increasingly premium prices is what people want for a hobby that no one needs to survive. It's crazy.

Yuuuup

I'm with Bassman on this one, to hell with exclusives.

Let's say I could own Mario Kart or Donkey Kong on Steam, play them on PC. I could have full control over what peripherals to use, which graphics settings to adjust and even choose the DLSS type.

Now I can only choose to buy a Switch 2, buy the games at whichever setting and modes that devs provide or choose not to.

I am surprised that gamers on this forum do not advocate outlawing exclusives as Nintendo will continue to have its games released on its own system until the law says it cannot. It will not have its games released on other systems voluntarily, even if the gaming market or its financial state may require doing so.

It is unlikely that a law outlawing exclusives will happen as the gaming industry would lobby strongly against it.

We don't need to outlaw anything. To each their own, it's just that the exclusive market can't justify itself any longer because there is such miniscule parity between libraries it doesnt actually make a ton of sense. Compound that with massive budgets that also don't make sense and you have a modern hobby that needs to ditch exclusives all together... It's being propped up by those still fighting for their teams flag not because it benefits gamers....

Game prices are going up significantly.... Console prices going up significantly.... We have a tiny, almost non existant exclusive game market but that won't stop the fanboys from telling you to buy thousands of dollars in hardware to play a single exclusive game with a mid 70 on metacritic. It's insanity.

If people don't like it, vote with your wallet. Simple as that. If the platform holders infringe on their customers too much then the market will react accordingly. It happens. No platform holder or publisher is immune from failing business models. But don't hold your breath for the market to change overnight. As long as these are publicly traded companies, they going to act on their shareholder's behalf first

I don't really care about the top end price. As long as the sale price comes down to $20, then they can set the new game price whatever they like. What do I care about what the rich pay for their gams?? The rich don't care, and I don't either. The real problem with nintendo...for the switch, their sale prices never went below $40 afaik...they never dropped any of their first party games below that mark, even 5 years later with tens of millions of sales. Sony seems to be following the same trend for their first party games. Only xbox and pc prices their games fairly.

So the question now is...if the brand new price of games is $80, what is the sale price going to be for nintendo games??

Gamers are powerful if they vote with their wallet. Nintendo dropped the price of the 3DS by $80, simply because gamers weren't buying.

@Planeforger: Nintendo has some shitty practises too. If gamers voted with their wallets then Nintendo too would reduce their prices, it's not hard it's just that for the most part gamers are idiots.