US preorders for the Nintendo Swap 2 console went stay at Greatest Purchase, Goal, and Walmart at midnight Japanese time final night time (although the frenzy of orders induced issues and delays throughout all three retailers’ web sites). The console listings got here with a wave of different retail listings for video games and equipment, and people listings both fill small gaps in our information about Swap 2 sport packaging and pricing or verify information that have been beforehand implied.

First, $80 Swap 2 video games like Mario Kart World is not going to price $90 as bodily releases. That is value repeating over and over due to how pernicious the rumors about $90 physical releases have been; as lately as this morning, typing “Swap 2 $90” into Google would present you movies, Reddit threads, information posts, and even Google’s own AI summaries all confidently and incorrectly proclaiming that bodily Swap 2 releases will price $90 after they truly will not.

Whereas bodily sport releases within the EU sometimes cost more than their digital counterparts, there was truly no indication that US releases of bodily video games would price $90. The Mario Kart World web site listed an $80 MSRP from the beginning, as did early retail listings that have been revealed earlier than preorders truly started, and this worth did not change when Nintendo increased accessory pricing in response to import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

However now that precise order affirmation emails are going out, we are able to (much more) confidently say that Swap 2 bodily releases price the identical quantity as digital releases, similar to authentic Swap video games and most bodily releases for different consoles. For instance, the bodily launch for the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza is $70, additionally the identical because the digital model.

Third-party releases run a wider pricing gamut, from as little as $40 (Sq. Enix’s Bravely Default remaster) to as a lot as $100 (a particular version launch of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion, additionally accessible at $70 for the usual launch).

Plenty of third-party video games are getting Recreation-Key card releases

When preorders opened in Japan yesterday, all physical releases of third-party games had Nintendo’s Recreation-Key card disclaimer printed on them. And it seems to be like an entire lot of bodily third-party Swap 2 sport releases within the US may even be Recreation-Key playing cards, based mostly on the field artwork accompanying the listings.

These have been controversial amongst bodily media holdouts as a result of they don’t seem to be bodily sport releases within the conventional sense—they haven’t any precise sport knowledge saved on them. While you insert them right into a Swap 2, they can help you obtain the sport content material from Nintendo’s on-line retailer, however not like a pure digital launch, you may nonetheless must have the Recreation-Key card inserted each time you wish to play the sport.