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Yesterday's Nintendo Direct gave us an absolutely mammoth amount of information about Switch 2, but one of the less welcome revelations was that game prices are rising for Nintendo's new console , with leading launch title Mario Kart World costing a whopping $80 / £75 in physical form (the digital version is less). As you can imagine, that price hike has caused quite a bit of consternation online. With recent conversations regarding GTA 6 possibly costing as much as $100 , Nintendo's bump is only going to give Rockstar Games the confidence to increase its prices.

After all, Mario Kart World and GTA 6 are the two closest things you've got to a sure bet in games retail right now. When a new generation comes around, there's always the argument that game prices should be expected to rise—development budgets, inflation and other factors are often cited as key reasons. In the case of Mario Kart World, you could certainly say it's a more ambitious game than its predecessor (which, lest we forget, was first released over a decade ago on Wii U ).

There's also a keener focus on online play, making this more akin to a "live service" title—and one which Nintendo will presumably support over the lifespan of the Switch 2, which comes at a cost. As a counterpoint, you could argue that any costs related to online functionality should be covered by the fact you're charging Switch 2 owners a monthly fee to play over the web via Nintendo Switch Online ; bumping up the base cost is effectively double-dipping. It's worth noting that Donkey Kong Bananza costs $10 less than Mario Kart World at $69.

99, but other titles—such as Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Switch 2 Edition and Kirby and the Forgotten Land Switch 2 Edition —are $80. Covering costs also seems like a weak argument when you take into account that Mario Kart 8 sold 8.46 million copies on Wii U and 67.

35 million on Switch, with the base retail price not really changing all that much in the decade it's been on sale. That game will have generated Nintendo an eye-watering amount of revenue, and if it had kept Mario Kart World's price in line with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's, it would still be looking forward to generating a mountain of cash. Of course, the current state of the world, combined with inflation and a weak Yen, means that Nintendo needs to move the needle if it wants to maintain the kind of profits it has been enjoying over the Switch's lifespan.

It has shareholders it needs to keep happy, after all. On the flip side, the average consumer is feeling the pinch more than ever for many of the same reasons, and some will quite rightly point out that their income is stretched to breaking point by rent, food, and other bills. Putting up the price of its most popular titles at this point feels like Nintendo failing to read the room properly.

It's hard to envisage a situation where Mario Kart World doesn't sell like hotcakes even at $80, though, so it might be wise to expect Nintendo to charge that figure for its top-line AAA releases moving forward—and expect that shift to have a knock-on effect elsewhere in the industry..