Nintendo Says Switch 2 Physical Game Prices Are Not Rising Across the Board

r/Games pushed a follow-up IGN report that adds important clarification to Nintendo's new Switch 2 pricing model in the U.S. After confusion over whether Nintendo was quietly raising the cost of physical games, the company told IGN on 2026-03-25 that physical game prices are not going up across the board. The key change, Nintendo says, is that digital MSRP for some Nintendo-published Switch 2 exclusives will now sit below the price of boxed copies.

The first concrete example is Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. According to IGN, the digital version remains priced at $59.99, while the physical version is now set at $69.99. Nintendo says that split reflects the different costs involved in producing and distributing packaged games. It also reiterates that retail partners ultimately set their own prices for both physical and digital software, so store-level pricing can still vary even with Nintendo's new MSRP guidance in place.

Scope is the most important part of the clarification. Nintendo's wording points specifically to new Nintendo-published digital titles exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S., beginning with Yoshi pre-orders in May 2026. That suggests the company is not retroactively re-pricing every boxed game on the platform. IGN notes that already-priced software such as Mario Kart World, which is listed at $79.99 in both formats, does not appear to be changing under this policy as things stand today.

Even with that narrower interpretation, the policy still matters. If Nintendo keeps this structure, future first-party releases such as Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Splatoon Raiders could end up with a higher buy-in for players who prefer physical media. That is a meaningful shift for Nintendo, whose audience still has a stronger attachment to boxed software than the average PlayStation or Xbox market, especially among families and collectors.

The broader backdrop is cost pressure. IGN notes Nintendo has already dealt with higher accessory pricing and ongoing component, tariff, and logistics issues while trying not to raise the Switch 2 hardware price itself. So the safest reading for now is narrow but important: in the U.S., Nintendo is reframing the change as lower digital MSRP on some new exclusives, not a blanket hike for all physical Switch 2 games.