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The Nintendo Switch doesn’t have any bundled games as it would have made the console too expensive, Nintendo of America honcho Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed.
Speaking in an interview with GameSpot, Fils-Aime said the company wanted to give consumers as much choice as possible when it came to choosing which games they want to play. Bundling in a game would have also pushed the console’s price even higher, which many view as already quite expensive compared to the current prices of the PS4 and Xbox One.
"We look at every launch uniquely as to what’s the right thing to do for that launch," Fils-Aime said.
"And I’ve been involved in launches dating back to the Nintendo DS. Each one is a little different. For this launch, what we found is that with the range of software that’s coming – not only available day one but through April and into the summer, and including the holiday timeframe with Super Mario Odyssey – that we wanted to enable the consumer to buy the software they want, to look to get to the most approachable price point we could get to. That led us to a $299 price point, and let the consumer decide what games they want to buy.
"The first decision that we make is, where do we want to be in terms of the hardware price point that’s going to be approachable and hit the marketplace we want? And from a US price point, we wanted to be at $299," he added.
"Certainly, lower is always better, but at a $349 or $399 price point, we just didn’t feel that was the right place to be. So we start there. And then it’s all about, what’s going to be included? Obviously the inclusion of the two Joy-Con, critically important; all the right cables, the dock, critically important. We also have to do this from a financial perspective as well. Once we got to that bundle, it really needed to be at $299 without a piece of software."
Having spoken to several members of the gaming press at Nintendo’s UK Switch premiere in London on Friday, there was a general consensus that the mini-game compilation 1-2 Switch would have been a prime candidate for an accessible pack-in title. After all, it bears many similarities to bundled games such as Nintendo Land and Wii Sports, as its various mini-games are all designed to show off what the Switch is capable of.
Fils-Aime, however, says 1-2 Switch is a far more substantial title that warrants its own separate release:
"You make the comment about Wii Sports, and certainly, the analogy that it’s a great utilization of the Joy-Con and shows off the capabilities of the system, that is absolutely true," Fils-Aime told GameSpot.
"I would say, though, that 1, 2, Switch has many more experiences–it’s a wider pallet of experiences, potentially more akin to Wii Play than to Wii Sports. And, again, from that standpoint, Wii Play was a standalone piece of software both with a controller at the time and without, so that’s probably the better analogy."
