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Nintendo Switch set a new sales record during Black Friday, despite few discounts

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Nintendo is one of the stingiest companies in the video game industry when it comes to discounting its game consoles, and the Nintendo Switch has stuck to its $300 price tag for nearly three years. Despite that, a strong lineup of games helped the Switch to have its best sales week in the United States during Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

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According to Nintendo, from November 24 through November 30, the Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite consoles managed to sell more than 830,000 units in the United States, making it the best sales week ever in the country and pushing United States lifetime sales to 17.5 million.

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In addition to the Nintendo Switch Lite being a full $100 cheaper than its large sibling, the Switch received several great games shortly before the holiday that likely drove sales. Luigi’s Mansion 3 released to critical acclaim on October 31, and Pokémon Sword and Shield launched just a few weeks earlier and have already managed to sell a combined 3 million units in the Americas alone.

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The Switch itself didn’t receive any truly substantial deals during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events, with Nintendo still packing in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and selling it for the standard $300 despite it being an older model with less battery life. Other promotions included eShop credit and a microSDXC card for use in the system, but it didn’t need the huge price cuts of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in order to sell well. Certain games, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, were also discounted during Black Friday and helped give shoppers a great stocking-stuffer during Christmas.

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Nintendo is going to have a lot more competition during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2020. Microsoft is planning to launch its Xbox Project Scarlett during the holidays next year, and Sony is going to launch the PlayStation 5. Both systems will be vastly more powerful than the Switch, as the Xbox One and PS4 already have a pretty big power advantage today. Of course, those systems won’t be portable or have a way to play the latest Zelda game, so Nintendo may not have too much to worry about.

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Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Don’t expect Zelda’s $70 price to become the new Switch standard, says Nintendo
Link looks at his hand in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be Nintendo's first Switch game to be priced at $70. News that Tears of the Kingdom, a sequel to one of the bestselling and most critically acclaimed titles on the system, will have an increased price compared to its predecessor came as a surprise over three-and-a-half years after its announcement. It also raised questions about what the future of pricing for Nintendo games will be, especially as Sony, Microsoft, and third-party publishers all upped the cost of their new games in recent years. 
While Nintendo will release Tears of Kingdom at $70, a spokesperson for the company tells Digital Trends that this will not always be the case for its first-party games going forward. 
"No," the spokesperson said when Digital Trends asked if this is a new standard. "We determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis." 
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Official Trailer #2
To get more insight into the price shift, I spoke to Omdia Principal Analyst George Jijiashvili, who explains what has caused the price of games to go up in recent years and how Tears of the Kingdom demonstrates that Nintendo will "remain flexible about first-party title pricing." Ultimately, Nintendo fans are finally starting to feel the impact of inflation that's been sweeping across the game industry, even if it's only "on a case-by-case basis" for now.
The price is right
Nintendo claims that not every one of its significant first-party game will be $70, and we can actually already see that in action. Preorders just went live for Pikmin 4, which launches on July 21, after Tears of the Kingdom, and it only costs $60. Still, Zelda's price tag indicates that going forward, Nintendo will at least consider raising the price of its most anticipated games to $70. But why start with Tears of the Kingdom?  
When asked why it chose Tears of the Kingdom as its first $70 Nintendo Switch game, a Nintendo spokesperson simply reiterated that the company will "determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis." Still, it's a surprising choice for Nintendo to make that pricing change to just one exclusive game almost six years into the Switch's life span. Jijiashvili thinks the choice to do this with Tears of the Kingdom was a pretty apparent one for Nintendo, although it won't apply to everything going forward.
"If you are going to make a game $70, it's going to be the follow-up to one of your most critically acclaimed and bestselling games ever," Jijiashvili tells Digital Trends. "I don’t think that this means that $70 will become the standard price for all major Nintendo releases. It's worth noting that Metroid Prime Remastered is priced at $40. It's clear that Nintendo will remain flexible about first-party title pricing."

It makes basic financial sense for Nintendo to ask for a little bit more for a game it knows will be one of the biggest releases of 2023. But what factors in the game industry and world's economy at large caused Nintendo to make this decision? 
Priced Out
For more than a decade, people got comfortable with AAA video games being priced at $60. Of course, there were occasional exceptions to this rule, but it was seen as an industry standard until the dawn of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Publisher 2K was one of the first to announce a price increase, and companies like EA, Sony, and Microsoft have all followed suit. Jijiashvili chalks this up to inflation-related pressure on game publishers.
"The games industry has already been experiencing a lot of inflationary pressure," he explains. "AAA games are much more expensive to make now than they used to be, but prices have actually been declining in inflation-adjusted terms -- if prices had risen with inflation since 1990, they would now be over $90. On top of that, we’ve had a big burst of general inflation, meaning that publishers are looking at big increases in everything from salaries to tools. It’s going to be really hard for most publishers to avoid passing on all those extra costs at some point."
Jijiashvili provided us with a graphic created by Omdia that "shows what the typical price points for each generation would look like if you adjusted for inflation." As you can see, the inflation-adjusted prices are only exponentially growing, and the big game pricing shifts the graph highlights were all technically not even enough to keep up with inflation when they happened. 

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Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals: games, accessories and more
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Black Friday may be over for another year, but if you're worried you missed out on the best Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals, worry not! The Black Friday deals below are still available right now, and we've specifically picked out some of the best deals for anyone who can't resist Nintendo's consistently charming games console. We've found the best options available at retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon. Whether you're looking for awesome savings on games, accessories, or the console itself, we've got your back. Saving you the effort of checking out retailers for yourself, we've highlighted some of our very favorites, so you're sure to save big. Read on while we take you through our curated guide to all the best Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals available right now.

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Steam isn't the only platform holding a big summer sale. Nintendo Switch users can currently get a whole bunch of games up to 50% off on the eShop from now through July 6 in a "Big Ol' Super Sale." While gaming sales are a dime a dozen, a Nintendo sale is especially significant. The company is usually stingy when it comes to discounting its exclusives, so events like this are rare.

The list of discounted games isn't one to ignore. While it doesn't include any recent releases, like Mario Strikers: Battle League, it's a great way to get some of 2021's best console exclusives at half price. Here are the games you should grab before the sale ends. Get them this week and you can take them on your Fourth of July vacation.
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