I think I'm one of those rare consumers that has been turned off by Nintendo's pricing to the degree that I'm not interested in future consoles from them. When I bought the switch, about a year ago I was looking at the titles I had missed out on. I wanted to get Mario Kart when I got the console a year ago, and the 60 dollars it was priced at just seemed like a lot of money. I think I would have fun with Mario Kart and the girlfriend and I would probably play it for a dozen hours or so, but there are lots of good games to play that don't cost $50.
I generally like Nintendo titles and want to try them out, but whenever I look at Switch games the value just isn't there for me. The Idea of paying $50 for a little bit of an up-res'd Skyward Sword seems awful. I remember looking at the price of that Donkey Kong game and shaking my head in disbelief. The recent Mario ports I also wanted to play, as a somehow missed playing Galaxy, but so little work was done to them that they also seem like a poor value. Its weird comparing Nintendo pricing to pricing on other platforms. People say not to compare them, but why shouldn't we be comparing them to other companies games? Games like God of War and Horizon are usually like $10 on Playstation and Gamepass on Xbox has enough content that you don't really need to buy any games on the platform. The PC was first to having crazy cheap games with things like steam bundles and Humble bundles, and now it has things like the Epic Game store giving away games, and Gamepass for PC. I guess I adjusted to this pricing model years ago because I can't remember the last time I spent $60 on a non-Nintendo game.
Looking back, I realize that I owned a Wii and a 3ds that I barely touched. I played Wii for about 40 hours, and the 3ds for maybe 10 hours total. I told myself that maybe Nintendo just isn't for me, and then for some reason I did it again and bought a Switch. I've been sitting on this Switch for a year and a half and I played through Odyssey which was great, and tried to play Zelda but I bounced off of it. I think I would try some other things but at $50 a title everything just seems like a gamble. This also makes the Hardware feel expensive too, because these $50 titles are all I really want to play on the platform.
This is probably silly but I've always had a sneaking suspicion is that other people solve the Nintendo value problem in their minds. They tell themselves they loved all the games that they spent $60 on, even games like Luigi's Mansion 3 and Mario + Rabbids. Luigi's Mansion is a game, where if it were on Playstation, I could have picked up for 20 bucks a couple years after it released to try it out and found it to be an amusing if mediocre game. Yet I bought it at full price and I feel burned by it. I feel burned by Smash and Mario Maker 2, and Splatoon 2. And I feel burned because of the Switch hardware and its shitty Joycons and battery life.
I guess Nintendo is just not for me, but I look at the passion people have for any and all Nintendo products and I just don't understand how they could see things so differently. Wildly popular games tend to hit for me, or at least I get what they are going for and respect them. I think I get the draw of Nintendo games and the look so appealing to me that Nintendo has duped me into buying two more consoles after buying my disused Wii. The presentation of Nintendo games is just immaculate, and they seem so fun, but I start playing them and the parts of my brain that l feel like should be lighting up just don't light up. I've felt like a crazy person for the past decade, because I keep trying these Nintendo games that everyone raves about and I just can't get into them.
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