A vocal portion of Nintendo's fandom isn't happy about the newly confirmed price hike for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, having taken online to voice anger with this unpleasant surprise. Direct pre-orders for the game went live yesterday, with its eShop listing confirming Tears of the Kingdom's $70 price tag.The baseline price of AAA games increased at the advent of the latest console generation, with many industry watchers agreeing that consumers will "happily" pay $70 for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S titles. Whether that's also the case for Switch exclusives remains to be seen, although contemporary Nintendo games defied that trend up until now, launching at no more than $60.Looking at social media reactions to the start of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom pre-orders, many consumers claim to be baffled by the $70 price tag. "I'm surprised they did this mid-generation," one fan wrote on Reddit, with another one swiftly proclaiming they "hate" the move. Some of the other negativity prompted by the price hike was aimed at Nintendo's rigid pricing strategy and historical reluctance to discount even the most obscure games from its portfolio.
Meanwhile, a number of Twitter users are arguing that "there's no reason for Zelda to be 70 dollars" and accusing Nintendo of being "greedy." One fan went as far as to label the price tag "a crime" in light of the fact that Tears of the Kingdom will likely perform similarly to Breath of the Wild, which struggled to hit 30fps at a 900p resolution in handheld mode. Others still have criticized the price hike as a scheme to push Switch Game Vouchers, dismissing the inherent value of Nintendo's two-for-$100 offer.
Apart from having the biggest introductory price in the series (not accounting for inflation), Tears of the Kingdom also boasts the largest file size of any Nintendo game ever. Even though storage requirements are by no means guaranteed to be proportional to content volume, some fans are still hoping this suggests they'll be getting record entertainment value for their money. Many others have adopted an even more optimistic outlook by positing that Zelda games have historically been more than worth their full launch prices, whatever those might have been.
Even among consumers who took the effort to voice their displeasure with the $70 price tag online, only a select few are claiming they won't be buying the game on release. And looking at the bigger picture, it has already been confirmed that the Tears of the Kingdom price hike won't apply to all new Nintendo games, with the Japanese gaming giant stating that it always decides launch prices on a case-by-case basis and will continue to do so.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming to Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023.
Source: Reddit/B-CUZ_, Reddit/CrimsonicTears,
