"Switch 2 and Mario Kart World Pricing Sparks Crisis for Nintendo, Ex-PR Managers Say"

Amid the ongoing backlash to Nintendo's shock pricing for the Switch 2 and Mario Kart World, two former Nintendo PR managers have described the situation as "a true crisis moment for Nintendo."

In a video on their YouTube channel, former Nintendo of America PR managers Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang criticized Nintendo for the way it revealed the $449.99 price of the Switch 2 and the $79.99 price of Mario Kart World. "I don’t want to blow things out of proportion, but this does feel like a true crisis moment for Nintendo," Ellis stated.

Mario Kart World isn't the only Nintendo Switch 2 game to cost $79.99. Some Nintendo Switch 2 Edition titles, such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, also carry the same price tag. Nintendo has faced criticism for charging for the Switch 2 tutorial video game experience, Welcome Tour, which fans argue should be a free pack-in. For comparison, Astro's Playroom comes pre-installed on every PlayStation 5 console, serving as a free tech demo for the DualSense controller.

The anger over pricing has even spilled over into Nintendo’s Treehouse livestreams, with viewers flooding the chat with "DROP THE PRICE" messages.

Ellis and Yang were particularly critical of the way Nintendo revealed the price of the Switch 2 and its games. They pointed out the lack of a price in the Direct itself as a "deliberate" omission that led to confusion and misinformation as fans scrambled to find pricing confirmation elsewhere.

Nintendo Switch 2 System and Accessories Gallery

91 ImagesThe Switch 2 and Mario Kart World pricing was "intentionally omitted from the Direct for a reason," Yang claimed, "but handled poorly in terms of the information being scattered across different places, expecting fans or consumers to piece it all together."

Ellis added, "It just shows some disrespect to the consumer, where, 'oh, you just saw the Direct you’re so excited, you’re just gonna throw your money at us blindly, you’re not going to even ask the question of how much it costs because you’re so excited, aren’t you?'"

"It’s a little bit degrading almost to the intelligence of the consumer," Yang remarked.

The former NOA communications staff then discussed Nintendo’s failure to address the pricing concern, either with a public statement or in interviews with the press. This, they said, was causing rampant speculation and misinformation to fill the void.

"They are enabling the story to get out of hand, out of control," Yang said. "They have lost control of this," Ellis added.

So what went wrong? Ellis and Yang suggested that Nintendo now lacks the consumer mindfulness it once had, following former NOA boss Reggie Fils-Aimé’s retirement and the tragic loss of former Nintendo head Satoru Iwata.

Nintendo’s communications team will now be recommending the company release an official statement, Yang said, but the approval process will be painful, involving many people before it even reaches current Nintendo boss Shuntaro Furukawa.

Nintendo will also be out of practice because it hasn’t spoken to its community or press in such a long time, the pair said, nor has it had to deal with this sort of negativity since the Nintendo 3DS price debacle of 2011.

There is concern for staff manning demo stations at the public-facing Switch 2 hands-on sessions. Fans will have reasonable questions at these public events and might put those to staff who are manning demo stations. If they respond with any sort of answer, that could end up online and be framed as Nintendo’s official response.

What happens next? It remains to be seen, but neither Ellis nor Yang expect a price drop of either the Switch 2 or its games before launch.

For more, check out everything announced at the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, and what the experts have to say about the Switch 2 price and Mario Kart World’s $80 price tag.