This Game Flopping just SAVED Future Switch 2 Games

追加: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]So, before the Nintendo Switch 2 was even revealed, we all assumed that moving into this next generation of Nintendo, they were also going to start to adopt the $70 pricing for brand new video games that we had seen from the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X era.

[00:00:17]Now, of course, nobody likes $70 games.

[00:00:20]I never wanted games to become $70. I think that 60 was a really good price for them, but with the PS5 and Xbox Series X era, they had started doing that where we had seen that pretty much every single major AAA release that was coming out was $69.99.

[00:00:35]And Nintendo had even done that for one game on the original Nintendo Switch being The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom where people noticed that that game was also priced at 70, and it seems like Nintendo might have been trying to kind of test out the waters and seeing if people even cared, and the game sold an insane amount, so in the end, it didn't even matter.

[00:00:54]But, following that big Nintendo Switch 2 Direct from April of last year, aside from Mario Kart World being $80, which is like its own entire can of worms because I think that that was a ridiculous pricing back then. I still don't think that there was anything in that game that should have made it worth $80. We did see that for the most part with all the other Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games, Nintendo was following this concept of $70 I mean, just take a look at some of the exclusive games that we had on the Switch 2. Donkey Kong Bonanza, $70.

[00:01:25]Kirby Air Riders, $70. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, also $70.

[00:01:32]But, have you noticed that with these brand new Nintendo Switch 2 games that are up and coming, they actually don't have that $70 price tag? That brand new Star Fox game that was announced just a few weeks ago is actually going to be $49.99 or $50. And also that brand new Splatoon Raiders game, which is like a Splatoon spin-off, is also going to be that same price at $50. Now, those are both the eShop prices as Nintendo did announce that eShop games are going to be at a different price now compared to their physical version, which essentially means now that physical versions of all of these games are going to be $10 more, but you're actually going to save $10 if you buy it from the eShop. So, these games are all $50 on the eShop, but then the physical cartridges for them are going to be 60.

[00:02:17]But, that's the thing. $60 is still the pricing from the Nintendo Switch 1 generation. As if we're following by what we were expecting for the Switch 2, then we would expect the games to be $60 on the eShop and then $70 if you buy the physical version, but that's not what they're doing.

[00:02:33]And digging a little bit further, it actually looks like that there might be one game that could have been the entire reason why we're starting to get different prices now for these brand new Switch 2 games, and we might have to give a lot of thanks to this game because it looks like that this game's failure, or at least it's kind of lack of sales or not really like the best performance, has led to Nintendo having to reconsider how they're going to price their Switch 2 games. And the game that I'm talking about is Mario Tennis Fever.

[00:03:00]So, Mario Tennis Fever was the brand new tennis game that was announced inside of the last Nintendo Direct, and it is pretty much your standard Mario sports game, but with all of the pricing that we had seen for the Nintendo Switch 2 games in the past, like I had mentioned before, this game did release at $69.99 on both versions with the eShop and the physical cartridge.

[00:03:22]Now, Mario anything should be able to sell pretty well, and we have seen for many Nintendo generations in the past that the Mario sports games do perform pretty well and do get a good amount of sales. So, having a brand new Mario tennis game like this early into the Nintendo Switch 2's life, we should be expecting a good amount of people to be interested in getting this game.

[00:03:42]And we actually have a great comparison point that we can use with the previous Mario tennis game, Mario Tennis Aces, as both of these games had released relatively around the same time for the life cycle of the system that they're on. Mario Tennis Aces came out in June of 2018, so the Nintendo Switch had been on the market for a little over a year, and it hasn't been a year yet for the Nintendo Switch 2, but Mario Tennis Fever came out about 8 months or so after the Nintendo Switch 2 had released, and considering the Switch 2 was selling at a faster pace at launch compared to the original Switch, there's kind of a similar number of Nintendo Switch 2s that are out there in terms of the install base that there were for the original Switch, so a similar number of people for how many could be interested in buying this game.

[00:04:27]And just recently, Nintendo did have their investors meeting with their shareholders, where they talk about like their financial data and their sales and performance for all of their systems and their games, and we can see this page right here on their website for their top-selling video games, where we can see here all of the games that have basically broken over 1 million copies, and if we go to the Nintendo Switch 2 section, we can see right here that this is as of March 31st, 2026, and if we scroll down here and take a look at all the games that have sold over a million, we've got Mario Kart World at 14.70 million, Donkey Kong Bonanza at 4.52 million, the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Pokémon Legends ZA at 3.94 million, Pokémon Pocopia is at 2.41 million, and then Kirby Air Riders is at 1.87 million. But, you might notice there is one game that's not on here, and that is Mario Tennis Fever.

[00:05:23]Now, maybe some of you are thinking, well, that's not really a lot of time for a Mario Tennis game to reach a million copies. It probably takes a little bit longer than that. Well, the really nice thing about the Nintendo website is that they actually archive all of their financial data, so if I go down here and I change this to the fiscal year of 2019, I can go back down and see all of the things that they had released in the past, and if we take a look at this one right here, that was released on July 31st of 2018, they had posted this earnings release for their 3 months that ended on June 30th of 2018.

[00:05:56]So, all of this information is up to June 30th of 2018. And if I click on this little PDF here and I open it up, we can see right here if I zoom in, they have all of their financial highlights and things that they had released. And if I scroll down here to this paragraph, it actually says right here, "Mario Tennis Aces released in June is also off to a good start with 1.38 million units sold." So, we're talking about something that came out, by the way, on June 22nd of 2018. And this was posted as of June 30th. So, we're talking like in about 9 or 10 days, Mario Tennis Aces had sold 1,380,000 units. And so now, going back to seeing this as of March 31st of 2026 for the Nintendo Switch 2, Mario Tennis Fever came out on February 12th of 2026. So, this is over a month. So, even after a month and a little bit over than that, the game still couldn't even reach 1.00 million. And at the same time, if we take a look at Mario Tennis Aces, the game had 1,380,000 in just 10 days. So, you can definitely see here that Mario Tennis Fever was performing significantly worse compared to Mario Tennis Aces. In analyzing all of this, I really feel like this was kind of the thing that gave Nintendo call of, "Oh, we can't just get away with selling anything for $70 now on the Nintendo Switch 2 because a Mario Tennis game should definitely generate at least a million or so units. That is something that sells relatively well." And the fact that it's been out for over a month and still hasn't been able to reach that 1 million is definitely concerning considering the previous Mario Tennis game had over a million in just 10 days.

[00:07:40]And I really feel like it's because of that and just like the market conditions and everything, right now people have limited money to spend, and even after just seeing Mario Tennis Fever, like I've heard that the game is pretty good for a Mario sports game, but I just didn't want to spend $70 on that. So, I think a lot of people kind of felt similarly and didn't want to spend such an insane amount of money for just a Mario sports game considering like so many other like titles that we can get for so much more content and so many crazy things that you can get on other systems, and even on the switch for the same amount of money.

[00:08:10]And I really do feel like that because of this, Nintendo kind of reconsidered how they're going to price a lot of these upcoming games, and that's why we're starting to see now that Star Fox and Splatoon Raiders are just $50, and maybe they're really just going to save like the really big AAA games to be that $70 price tag. So, they're really starting to embrace that variable pricing that we had seen them talk about before.

[00:08:32]So, in the end, Mario Tennis Fever kind of flopping and not really having the best performance was a blessing in disguise for all of us because it looks like it really made Nintendo kind of realize that they can't just sell every single game on the Switch 2 for $70, and now we're starting to get better prices now for a lot of these upcoming games because a game like Splatoon Raiders, I wasn't even really interested in getting that game because I just assumed that it was going to be $70, but the fact that it's only $50 now, I'm actually going to get that game. So, it's actually making me kind of consider now to try to buy some of these games that I wasn't even interested in before because I was just assuming that they were going to be much more expensive. So, if they can really keep this up, I think it's going to be awesome for a lot of these games now on the Nintendo Switch 2.

[00:09:14]So, yeah, if you guys enjoyed the video, definitely be sure to click that like button, and also subscribe to the channel as well. I'm definitely going to have some more Nintendo content, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on that. Comment down below and let me know what you guys think about this. How are you guys feeling about the new pricing that we're getting now for these Switch 2 games, and kind of as a result of Mario Tennis Fever just kind of flopping when the game had come out, and how do you feel about it if you did actually end up getting the game? Are you liking Mario Tennis Fever? I kind of want to know how people feel about that as well. So, definitely be sure to let me know, but if you don't have anything to say about it, just comment your favorite emoji down below for some engagement. I would really appreciate it. Go follow me on Twitter at ActualAero so you can be featured in videos and also join my Discord server as well. We've got a bunch of people in there who are always talking about Pokémon and Smash Bros and Nintendo. So, definitely be sure to join that. But, yeah, that's pretty much it. Thank you so much for watching.