168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdoܫm is Nintendo's first $70 game. Well, its first $70 game since $60 was established as the standard. I remember seeing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario Party 3 retailing for $70 on a store shelf when I was a kid, but that was before pricin🅘g norms had settled at the point w♔here they comfortably stayed for multiple console generations.
Seeing Nintendo follow the changing norms for triple-A pricing pushed me to reconsider a deal the company has offered for a while: its voucher program. If you're a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo Switch Online subscriber, you can purchase a voucher for $100 that lets you buy two games. The list of titles currently available includes basically every Nintendo-published game, including recent releases like Tears of the Kingdom, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fire Emblem Engage, and the forthcoming Pikmin 4, plus classics like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Odyssey. There are a few notable exceptions — 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metroid Prime Remastered isn't eligible for some reason — but, by and large, if there's a big exclusive Switch game that has been released since the system launched in 2017, you can get it with the voucher.
Tears of the Kingdom's $70 price point is not yet Nintendo's new standard for triple-A games. Pikmin 4, set to launch in July, is priced at $60. But, if more Nintendo games get the $70 tag — and that seems likely if Tears of the Kingdom sells well — the voucher becomes, in my mind, the only way to buy Switch games. This is less of a necessity if games are $60. Is it worth spending $40 more than you actually want to get $20 off? It wasn't for me. But, if I can get one game for $70, or two games for $100, the choice becomes clearer. This is especially true on Switch, given Nintendo's unwillingness to lower prices, even years after launch.
Sony and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft should be thinking about implementing something similar. Sony has reported that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:🦩consumeꦿrs are buying less individual games, though revenue for console and software sales are soaring. That news is a mixed bag for Sony — money is money — but it's in the company's best interest to encourage players to spread that cash around. If only a few games from a few studios are successful, that will make Sony's offering smaller and less varied over time. If Fortnite, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty, and the big single-player franchises are generating massive revenue while players are priced out of taking a chance on something💯 more experimental, that makes the Sony ecosystem weaker. Fewer kinds of games means fewer kinds of gamers.
The console manufacturers should be encouraging players to take chances on games outside of their wheelhouse, and making those games affordable is the best way to do that. I've never played any games in the Pikmin franchise before, but because of Nintendo's voucher deal, I bundled it with Tears of the Kingdom. I may not like Pikmin 4 — who knows! — but it's not a big deal if I don't. I got it for half off.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Game Pass, PS Plus, and Nintendo Switch Online offer players the chance to experiment, to an extent, but Game Pass is the only one of those services that reliably offer🐼s new games. If gaming is going to continue to be a broad, varied medium, this kind of voucher is a good way for the publishers to put their money where their mouth is.