The physical release of Metroid Prime Remastered is being re-sold at ridiculous prices online thanks to scalpers. Nintendo has a bad habit of sometimes not producing enough product to meet demand. Some fans have gone as far as to accuse Nintendo of doing this on purpose to create artificial scarcity and scare people into going out and buying its products, but while that has not been proven, the fact of the matter is it's a repeat issue with the Big N.
The latest instance of this was with the physical release of Metroid Prime Remastered, the remastered version of the GameCube classic that shadow dropped to critical acclaim in early February. When Metroid Prime Remastered first released, it only had a digital version available, but Nintendo recently released a physical version of the game as well. Unfortunately, it's been extremely difficult for people to get their hands on a physical copy of Metroid Prime Remastered.
Limited supplies have resulted in problems like Metroid Prime Remastered pre-orders being delayed or canceled and major retailers failing to have any copies of the game in stock at all. As one might imagine, this has energized scalpers who have gone out and purchased as many physical copies of Metroid Prime Remastered as possible to then turn around and sell the game for ridiculous prices on sites like eBay. At the time of this writing, Metroid Prime Remastered physical copies are being sold for $100, even though the game is only supposed to cost $39.99.
The $39.99 price tag for Metroid Prime Remastered was already controversial enough, considering it's a remaster of a game that's over 20 years old. Others would argue that the price is worth it, though, considering the significant graphical upgrades in Metroid Prime Remastered and the various other improvements found in the game. Even those that think Metroid Prime Remastered is fairly priced would likely balk at the $100 asking price that scalpers are asking for on eBay, which is more than double what it typically retails for.
Nintendo's history of shutting down online stores makes it so many fans of the company would prefer physical releases, even if they would normally have no problem making a digital purchase. Nintendo has not indicated if it has any plans to restock Metroid Prime Remastered, though, so those interested in the game may have to bite the bullet and stick with the digital version for now.
Metroid Prime Remastered is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
