Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

First-party Nintendo Switch games get rare price drops

By Tom Caswell August 5, 2020

Best Buy and Amazon are offering discounts on first-party Nintendo Switch titles, a rare event. Many games are up 17% off on both sites, bringing their prices to $50.

Here’s a list of games that are featured on both Amazon and Best Buy at that price.

Each site is also offering Octopath Traveler at a larger 25% discount, bringing that game’s price to $45. Best Buy has 17% off deals for Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s, Go Eevee!, Pokken Tournament, and Disgaea 4. Amazon has Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze exclusively at that discount as well.

2020 has been an interesting year for Nintendo. With gaming more popular than ever because of stay-at-home orders, the Switch has been out of stock at retailers for most of the year, inventory evaporating quickly the moment it’s replenished. That said, stock of consoles are currently more plentiful than a couple of months ago, the Lite version available more often than its dockable counterpart.

The last big first-party game from the company was Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which became an instant phenomenon back in March, but currently, no new first-party game has a release date for the company. While Paper Mario: The Origami King was recently released, it was handled by third-party developer Intelligent Systems.

Nintendo seems to be banking on re-releases such as the recently announced Pikmin 3, originally a title on the Nintendo Wii U, to fill out its calendar. There are also rumors that a majority of the previous mainline Super Mario titles will be getting remasters celebrating the iconic plumber’s 35th anniversary.

Whatever the company’s plans are, it seems that the effects of the coronavirus have made it difficult to continue development on many titles, so there may not be a new first-party Nintendo game for some time. Now then might be the perfect time for players to pick up a Switch game they might have missed, especially as many of these titles rarely, if ever, go on sale.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Professional video producer and writer, gaming enthusiast, and streamer! twitch.tv/greatbritom

Gaming

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is getting a very red Nintendo Switch OLED

An image of the Nintendo Switch - OLED Model Mario Red Edition.

Nintendo is launching a Nintendo Switch - OLED Model Mario Red Edition in October. The news capped off the company's Super Mario Bros. Wonder Direct today, which shared new details on the upcoming platformer.

This new themed version of the latest Nintendo Switch iteration is completely red across the system and Joy-Cons. On the back of it, players can find a silhouette of Mario and hidden coins. It's not as detailed as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's OLED model, but it does look very sleek. This Mario Red Edition system will come out on October 6, two weeks ahead of Super Mario Bros. Wonder's release.

Gaming

All cross-platform games (PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Two squads of heroes clash in an Overwatch 2 trailer.

Cross-platform support is becoming more important in the world of video games. Multiplayer hits like Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 and Fortnite have pushed crossplay into the limelight, and now most AAA multiplayer games release with at least partial cross-platform support. Finding every cross-platform game is no easy feat, though, so we did the hard work to bring you a comprehensive list of games that support crossplay.

Unfortunately, there aren't any rules when it comes to crossplay, so each game handles the feature a little differently. To make matters more confusing, certain backward-compatible games on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X still support crossplay on the most recent hardware, even if there isn't an official release for that hardware.

Gaming

PlayStation Plus is getting a major price hike following Game Pass changes

PlayStation Plus art highlighting the essential, extra, and premium tiers.

Sony confirmed that 12-month subscriptions for PlayStation Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium will all see price increases alongside the reveal of September's new Essential games on the PlayStation Blog.
Starting on September 6, 12 months of PS Plus Essential goes up in price from $60 to $80, PS Plus Extra's yearly price increases from $100 to $135, and an annual subscription to PS Plus Premium will rise from $120 to $160.

Sony says it needs to increase the price of all three versions of PlayStation Plus "to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service" and that buying a 12-month subscription is still cheaper than subscribing to any of the shorter-term plans over the same period of time. The price hikes comes just a couple of months after Microsoft raised the price of Xbox Game Pass.
When it comes to the games PS Plus Essential subscribers can expect this month, first up is Saints Row, a 2022 reboot of an open-world crime franchise that garnered mixed reviews upon its release. Next is Generation Zero, an open-world sci-fi shooter where players fight evil machines. Finally, those who have not already purchased a version of the MMO Black Desert on PS4 can redeem Black Desert - Traveler Edition, which comes with some additional items; if you have bought a version of Black Desert, you can just redeem the Traveler Item Pack.