Switch 2 Tutorial Game Welcome Tour Costs $10, Nintendo Explains Why It's Not a Free Console Pack-In - IGN

2 years ago by jordanlund to c/games

In an interview with IGN, Nintendo has explained why it made Switch 2 Welcome Tour a $10 standalone game and not a free console pack-in.
SolidShake 101 points 2 years ago

It should be free

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Lost_My_Mind 24 points 2 years ago

May I introduce you to their last launch day tech demo..... 1-2 Switch?

Yeah. You forgot about $60 launch day tech demo 1-2 Switch, didn't you?

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jacksilver 11 points 2 years ago

The only reason they sold any was because the console released with like one game, which seems to be the same strategy this time around too.

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Lost_My_Mind 8 points 2 years ago

I remember buying breath of the wild, and sniperclips on day 1.

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jacksilver 4 points 2 years ago

Exactly, the only real first party game was BOTW (and that also released on the Wii u).

There were some smaller games, like 12 switch/snipperclips/fast rmx, but the switch on release (and most of its life) was struggling for games.

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SolidShake 4 points 2 years ago

Okay?

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ivanafterall 67 points 2 years ago

“We're greedy shits,” Trinen said. “The holes in our souls are bottomless and we hate our customers."

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icecreamtaco 66 points 2 years ago

Makes sense, but if it's only $10 it should just be free. $10 isn't worth the bad PR and they should want this tour thing in as many hands as possible.

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gonzo-rand19 63 points 2 years ago

So it's a $10 tutorial? Don't care how expansive and cool it is, that's just fucked. The project scope should've been adjusted to make sure it would be free.

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tiramichu 14 points 2 years ago

Exactly! What sort of logic are they even trying to apply there? Basically saying "We put a lot of time into our tech demo, and it came out better than expected, so we're going to charge for it!"

That's just crazy.

The whole principle is that the intro experience is supposed to be free. It exists to get people pumped about the cool new thing they just bought and excited to play with it.

I guess Nintendo decided that - since you already bought the console - they don't especially care if you are pumped or not. They already got your money.

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apfelwoiSchoppen 56 points 2 years ago

This is one of the dumber decisions Nintendo has made, and they put out the Wii U.

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buddascrayon 21 points 2 years ago

Nintendo is being exclusively run by suits now. The era of a game company built by gamers is over.

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Steven 19 points 2 years ago

Nintendo was never ran by gamers.

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altima_neo 13 points 2 years ago

You're thinking iwata, but that was a brief blip on Nintendo history. The OG CEO was a straight up suit. The man had no interest in videogames, only business. Which is why they practically had a monopoly over their hardware in the 80s and 90s.

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buddascrayon 4 points 2 years ago

The OG CEO is from the 1800s so yeah. And yes I'm thinking of Iwata. And look at what was produced during his tenure. That's the Nintendo everyone is nostalgic about nowadays. 1989 Nintendo was a corporation throwing spaghetti at the wall, 2000's Nintendo was streamlining the end gamer experience, 2020's Nintendo is looking for an easy paycheck.

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samus12345 6 points 2 years ago

It wasn't even a bad system, just marketed terribly.

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FartMaster69 5 points 2 years ago

I would dispute the claim it wasn’t a bad system.

The gamepad as a mandatory component really gimped it hard.

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midori_matcha 49 points 2 years ago

$10 is the "go fuck yourself" price for things that would otherwise be free.

You've already spent $450 on the console, $90 on a game, and $50 for the full online subscription. What's $10 more dollars for the welcome demo? Go fuck yourself, pay the plumber man.

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Hoimo 8 points 2 years ago

Yeah, I expected them to ask the full $60 for it, which would be completely unreasonable, but at least I understand why they wouldn't give it away then. But 10? They could easily eat that, they just don't want to.

Either way, I can't imagine anyone paying for a "game" that's nothing more than an instruction booklet. If it were free, maybe someone would open it while Mario Kart is downloading.

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jordanlund 4 points 2 years ago

You expect Nintendo to do MULTITASKING? ;)

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JakobFel 37 points 2 years ago

I feel like they're trolling us at this point. There's no way they're this stupid.

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weststadtgesicht -9 points 2 years ago

How is this stupid? Call it greedy or anti-consumer, but in the end it will increase Nintendo's profits so it's far from stupid from the company's perspective. People buy consoles no matter how bad they are treated. Maybe you should call consumers stupid instead?

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Hadriscus 19 points 2 years ago

No, disrespectful business practices don't make the public stupid

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JakobFel 14 points 2 years ago

The problem is that a company can only push their greed so far before they start losing people. Up until now, most of the Nintendo hate came from their anti-emulation crusade. Now, it seems like everyone and their brother is talking about just how absurd the entirety of this launch is.

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omarfw 3 points 2 years ago

On places like reddit, Lenny, etc where there is a vocal minority complaining about this. The vast majority of consumers don't come on here nor do they keep themselves informed. They'll grumble at the price a bit, then buy it anyway.

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JakobFel 6 points 2 years ago

I'm not talking about Lemmy. I'm talking about literally every community I've looked. Aside from fanboys being fanboys, the reaction has been nothing but outrage.

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samus12345 9 points 2 years ago

Nintendo can and has pushed the greed too far for even Nintendo fans before. Wii U and 3DS at launch being fairly recent examples.

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Ashtear 33 points 2 years ago

I think this money grab wouldn't have gotten as much run in the media if it hadn't been front and center in the Direct. Feels like a misstep, but then, so does €90 Mario Kart...

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Fingolfinz 28 points 2 years ago
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Viri4thus 15 points 2 years ago

And rightfully so...

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Fingolfinz 9 points 2 years ago
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Vopyr 27 points 2 years ago

Damn, Nintendo is such a crap company... What the heck is wrong with them?

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Etterra 17 points 2 years ago

Greed.

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samus12345 7 points 2 years ago

They're Sony ca. 2006, fresh off the success of the PS2.

Or Microsoft ca. 2013, fresh off the success of the Xbox 360.

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thequickben 3 points 2 years ago

At least Sony had some justification. A new and expensive cell architecture. It was ground breaking for its time but cost too much.

Nintendo is giving us something the steam deck and other pc handhelds can do, and trying to charge $80 for games that will almost never go on sale. I can buy old steam titles for less than $10, show me an old Nintendo title that can ever sell for that amount. It’s just not a good enough proposition just to have access to a handful of $80 Nintendo titles.

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samus12345 3 points 2 years ago

Yeah, I could stomach the price of the console, but no way am I ever going to pay those outrageous prices that never go down for first party games, and without those there's no point in getting a Switch 2 over a Steam Deck. I'll have a lot of Nintendo games to catch up on once decent Switch 2 emulators are a thing.

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reksas 24 points 2 years ago

"Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is described as a "virtual exhibition" of the new hardware. Per Nintendo: "through tech demos, minigames and other interactions, players will get to know the new system inside and out in ways they may never have known about otherwise."

So its basically just something that goes on about how great and wonderful switch is? And they want you to pay for it? This is so stupid I'm not sure if its even anti consumer anymore but somehow managed to go beyond to new levels of awfulness.

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jordanlund 14 points 2 years ago

It's kind of like the Valve demo that's free on the Steam Deck to go through all the features on the machine, except not as interesting.

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hperrin 23 points 2 years ago

I was on the fence about Switch 2, leaning toward not getting one. This just solidified that position. No way I’m paying for something that charges for the instruction manual.

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subignition 23 points 2 years ago

For 10 bucks, it better have a button combination that unlocks Mario Paint 2.

I haven't seen a damn thing in the marketing that justifies it being anything other than free. If it's worth 10 bucks, you better show that shit off. The audacity to call it "welcome tour" with a $10 price tag is wild

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WaitThisIsntReddit 26 points 2 years ago

Nothing says welcome to the new Nintendo console like learning to open that wallet.

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altima_neo 7 points 2 years ago

I read a preview of it that said it wasn't worth the money. Nintendo is getting greedy AF.

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FartMaster69 20 points 2 years ago

“Because fuck you!” -Nintendo

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SoftestSapphic 4 points 2 years ago

-the children's toy company

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Flemmy 15 points 2 years ago

I'd rather pay for a large pizza tutorial. And eat it.

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jordanlund 4 points 2 years ago

"This is the stuffed crust... filled with cheese and pepperoni. It's like calzone in a bread stick form factor!"

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ViscloReader 14 points 2 years ago

This demo/manual and the driving basketball game should be included in the system.

Think back to the 3ds with head wars and AR games, no way I'm buying such games but having them makes the system a bit more valuable.

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mlg 10 points 2 years ago

I like how there's so many fees on this console that we haven't even gotten to the $50 skype webcam accessory which they spent a solid third of their direct showing off.

I miss the DS era :/

EDIT:

I also want to point out this: https://www.nintendolife.com/...

Fils-Aimé pushed for the bundle, and initially company President Satoru Iwata turned the proposal down: "Nintendo does not give away precious content for free."

"Neither of you understands the challenges of creating software that people love to play. This is something we constantly push ourselves to do. We do not give away our software," Mr. Miyamoto stated.

It's ironic that with the success of Wii sports, Nintendo completely ignored the lesson.

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A_Random_Idiot 4 points 2 years ago

All the important people at nintendo have been separated from reality by their own fame and success for so long that they've lost their common sense and rationality.

But despite it all, their absolute contempt for their costumers and supporters continues to get rewarded by masses of fanboys/fangirls who keep unloading dumptrucks of money on Nintendos doorstop out of some obsessive nostalgia, and thus keeps nintendo from ever actually learning an actual fucking lesson.

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jordanlund 3 points 2 years ago path: 0 16350621 16353234, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
echodot 2 points 2 years ago

Who's going to buy that camera though? It's only so you can talk to 3 other people, and none of the games that make use of it look any good.

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klobuerschtler 10 points 2 years ago

TLDR: They're greedy Bastards

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anarchyrabbit 10 points 2 years ago

I jumped ship from Switch to handheld pc. The pc game prices was a big part, especially older games don't hold value. For example I got Middle Earth shadow of war for like $6. I still sometimes miss my switch but I will definitely wait a while before I decide on a switch 2.

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Num10ck 5 points 2 years ago

which handheld pc did you get?

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anarchyrabbit 4 points 2 years ago

I went for the ROG ally x

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Num10ck 2 points 2 years ago

wow its like $800? would you recommend it?

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anarchyrabbit 3 points 2 years ago

Yeah it's a hefty price tag but I wanted the extra battery. The Z1 extreme has pretty much the same performance and come with 500gb storage, with a better price tag. You can always upgrade your battery and ssd if you want to later down the line.

I love the device! The fact that I can play pc games in my hand is a huge win for me. I work in front of a pc the whole day. Last thing I want is to sit in front of a pc for gaming. But you must understand it is a pc and not a console. You have more setting and things to tinker with setting to get best performance unlike a console where it is just plug and play.

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BackgrndNoize 2 points 2 years ago

Steam deck maybe

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Abnorc 4 points 2 years ago
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vrighter 5 points 2 years ago

resale

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bungle_in_the_jungle 9 points 2 years ago

Don't care. Still no.

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AceFuzzLord 5 points 2 years ago

"Well, you see, if we give away anything for free, it has to be your organs! Our law whor... I mean lawyers cannot afford to be some of the worst people on Earth unless we make things so expensive you have to sell all your organs on the black market!" ~ Them, probably

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TwinTitans 3 points 2 years ago

There isn’t one reason they could give that would ever justify this for the consumer. Absolutely unacceptable and anti consumer.

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hal_5700X 2 points 2 years ago

The more Nintendo talks, the worst it gets.

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ekZepp 2 points 2 years ago

Nintendo explain: " It's not free... we want your money... all of it"

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KeenFlame 1 point 2 years ago

I feel stupid but I have only ever bought devices that are open or able to be jailbroken. I don't get how sometimes when the jail walled garden bdsm relationship punishes it's people, they react with a gasp, as if they thought their locked hardware that isn't open to their owner that they "have" isn't made for exactly that purpose?

It's like yeah Janet. It's why you brought it. So you can play only their games and watch their movies and enjoy things that they decide the price and allowance of. You selected that? You chose to hire this device? Well I split mine open to use it for what it can do. No drm has ever succeeded. It's a grift protected by laziness and - as always, lawyers and lobbyists who have yet to grow up

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