With the launch of the Wii and Wii U, Nintendo included some games that basically demonstrated the console’s capabilities, and they have proven to be huge successes in their own rights, especially at parties where Wii Sports is incredibly fun to play. Unfortunately with the Switch, Nintendo has decided that they will not be including any games.The reason? It would seem that Nintendo’s decision to price the console at $300 is why there are no bundled games. Speaking to GameSpot, Nintendo of America’s President Reggie Fils-Aime said, “The first decision that we make is, where do we want to be in terms of the hardware price point that’s going to be approachable and hit the marketplace we want? And from a US price point, we wanted to be at $299.”
He goes on to say, “Certainly, lower is always better, but at a $349 or $399 price point, we just didn’t feel that was the right place to be. So we start there. And then it’s all about, what’s going to be included? Obviously the inclusion of the two Joy-Con, critically important; all the right cables, the dock, critically important. We also have to do this from a financial perspective as well. Once we got to that bundle, it really needed to be at $299 without a piece of software.”
Basically what this means is that had Nintendo included a game, they would have taken a loss. Given that we have no idea what Nintendo’s margins are, we can only assume that is the case. In any case we guess this is what Nintendo is going with for now. In the meantime the Switch will be released in the US on the 3rd of March.
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