Nintendo has announced that it will begin charging different prices for its digital and physical Switch 2–exclusive games starting with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. It’s not yet completely clear if this means digital versions of future games will be cheaper than the current standard price or if Nintendo’s physical games will be priced higher than they have been so far this console generation.
“Nintendo games offer the same experiences whether in packaged or digital format, and this change simply reflects the different costs associated with producing and distributing each format and offers players more choice in how they can buy and play Nintendo games,” the company’s March 25 announcement reads.
Been seeing a lot of people saying that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is $60 in the US but I can’t find a price listed anywhere here. Should be $60, probably will be $60, weird it’s been confirmed in every other region but here. pic.twitter.com/mJ5oXlD1p6
— Kit Ellis (@kitosan) March 12, 2026
As you can see on Nintendo’s official store site, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book will be $70 if you want a hard copy, while the digital version will only cost $60. While $70 may be Nintendo’s official recommended retail price, the company does note that retail partners like Walmart, Target, and whatever store you buy from may choose a different price. As of two weeks ago, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book was listed for $60 on Nintendo’s site, so it seems like this represents physical editions getting a price increase rather than digital copies getting cheaper.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is launching on Switch 2 on May 21, and no other Nintendo-published Switch 2 games are coming out between now and then, so it looks like Pokémon Pokopia narrowly missed this change. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, which is coming out in April, won’t be affected by this new policy either since it’s a Switch 1 release.
Switch 2 game pricing is more “variable” than ever
But what will this mean going forward? We can definitely expect this new price difference to be reflected on games like Pokémon Winds and Waves and Splatoon Raiders, but it remains to be seen if the standard $70 games this generation will now cost $80 for a physical copy. Will the next 3D Mario be priced like Mario Kart World and thus be $90 for the physical version?
Back when the Switch 2 came out, then-President of Nintendo America Doug Bowser said the company was pricing games on a case-by-case basis. “”We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences,” he told the Washington Post. “Those are all factors, and there’s many more that go into consideration of what is the right price point for the game. So I think you can anticipate that there will be variable pricing, and we haven’t set a benchmark.”
While Nintendo has been the first game maker to pierce the $80 game barrier, its games also rely on expensive SD Express cards for their physical copies. The costs of those components have been one factor pushing some developers to embrace the cheaper, controversial game key cards, which act as plastic DRM keys, instead. But Nintendo’s variable pricing strategy has also extended to DLC and Switch 2 upgrades.
