Update thanks to thethatfox:
Physical game cards may also not actually contain the game:
Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Card Overview
Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your “key” to downloading the full game to your system via the internet.
Update 2: There is probably a difference in Game-key cards and card that contain real game data. So we don’t know right now how often these game-key cards are used or if nintendo is using them.
There is zero chance that Nintendo is giving you a worse deal than third party sellers. That’s just not a thing. Not only does the third party retailer need to keep a cut, but there is an extra step of logistics and shipping involved. This is the MSRP. You won’t see lower unless it’s leftover stock on sale.
Admittedly, you should see a lot more of that with physical games, but who knows how small physical runs become in this weather. Physical carts could become Limited Run-style collector’s items.
I’m not sure if we’re agreeing or not. I was only talking about physical, and Amazon, Argos, etc. always sell for cheaper than Nintendo’s webstore. I sure hope physical games aren’t being phased out, but maybe this price difference between digital and physical is just reflecting that digital distribution is cheaper for Nintendo than producing physical carts.
Sure, after the fact when they were trying to offload stock. It’s certainly been easier to find cheap physical copies after launch, since digital games go in and out of sale at the same time everywhere.
We’ll see how that goes this time. I do think it’ll depend a lot on whether people keep buying carts and on how many carts they print on each run. The fact that there is a price difference makes me think they won’t be as physical-heavy as last time, but there’s no way to know yet.
Amazon routinely gives like $5-10 discounts on preorders.
Ah, okay. I only got a switch in 2020 or 2021, so I rarely bought newly released games.
This is the way to do it. I run 1-2 years behind on most single player games. I save tons of money and they’re typically done with patches at that point.