Nintendo: Gouging The Faithful

With all of the cheap new games coming out for the original PlayStation as well as the great new next generation games coming out for the Dreamcast and PS2, I'm beginning to wonder why people still buy into the $60 per game situation that seems to still be all too prevalent in the Nintendo 64 world. Look at the prices being asked for these recent and soon to be released games:

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: $59.99
A lot of money for a game with limited replay value and somewhat linear gameplay.

WWF No Mercy: $59.99
Pretty much the same game as the last WWF game if you ask me. Why bother getting this one when you can get Wrestlemania 2000 for a lot less today.

Hey You, Pikachu!: $79.99
A virtual pet game with microphone. That's a lot of money folks. Sega was able to release their microphone-based game for $39.99 with microphone.

Harvest Moon 64: $64.99
A fun little virtual farm RPG game that costs way too much.

Ogre Battle 64: $64.99
A straightforward RPG game. I guess Atlus feels like it can charge more since there really are not many good RPGs available for the platform.

Pokemon Stadium: $59.99
This one has been ouf for a while. A fighting game. sort of with a nifty adaptor you can use to download characters. But why the high price?

Pokemon Puzzle League: $54.99
Another Tetris clone.

It looks like Nintendo and its 3rd parties are set out to charge higher prices for games that they believe will sell well. And then sell the low volume titles for $49.99. Seems to me they should be giving the faithful N64 owner a break but it looks to me like they are taking advantage of those that have stuck with them.

The last game that I picked up for the Nintendo 64 was Ogre Battle. I traded a few older games for it, I was not about to spend the $64.99 that EB wanted for the game. That is just downright insane if you ask me these days. Luckily, they had a trade deal going so I got a good deal for it considering the games that I traded. The only reason that I picked it up was due to the limited quantities being made for this title, I'm a collector at heart I guess.

I see the new Zelda commercial almost everyday it seems. But from what I've seen in the press it looks to be more of the same formula that Nintendo used with the last incarnation of Zelda. Oh well, I guess they'll make plenty of money from Zelda.

Why they came out with that Pokemon Puzzle game is beyond me. Sounds to me like they are running out of ideas. Same old same old if you ask me. I just can't take these high prices for this system anymore. Nintendo should try to do everything in their power to keep the prices down for the loyal folks that still support the system. Instead, they seem intent to gouge gamers for every last penny that they can.

Me, I'll wait for the game prices to drop. Time is on my side.

Submitted by: tiptonium