As a bundled launch title I expect most launch window sales will be digital. There won’t be 2nd hand game cards on the market in any volume until after they drop the bundle.
In Australia we had an au$90 price tier with only 6 titles:
Breath of the Wild
Pokkén Tournament DX
Fire Emblem Warriors
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Tears of the Kingdom
All their other AAA titles were au$80, for example:
Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Super Mario Odyssey
Pokémon Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet
Super Mario Party / Superstars / Jamboree
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe / Super Mario Wonder
Then smaller releases were placed at $70, for example:
1-2-Switch
Go Vacation
Fitness Boxing 2/ 3
Miitopia
WarioWare: Get It Together / Move it
You can see they used the $90 tier quite aggressively early in the piece and then scaled back significantly with almost 5 years between Smash Bros and Tears of the Kingdom.
At the same time they made sure the Marios (Kart, 3d, 2d, Party, Sports), Pokemons and other franchises with broad all-ages appeal were priced in the middle at $80.
To be honest I’m a bit worried about the pricing for Super Mario Kart World, the previous one was the beat selling Switch title and if they come out of the gate with high sales they may take the wrong lessons and try to lock in that au$120 price (a 50% increase!).
On the other hand they may just be price anchoring with the bundle. Having the standalone console priced at au$700 and the bundle at au$770 will let the consumer find ways to justify the purchase, they might say the console is worth $700 so the game is only $70, or they might argue the game is $120 so the console is really only $650. Either way will make them feel better about giving Nintendo the money.
I suppose the best outcome for the consumer would be for most people to get SMKW in the bundle and then hopefully the next title they release at that price point has lacklustre sales. If they see they sell more units at a lower price it can be a good outcome for everyone.
These links take you to a price tracker with a chart showing historical prices. The RRP of each of these has been static, and discounts are short and infrequent.
In a break from form Nintendo hasn’t released a budget “Selects” label for older titles this generation.
Their emulators have always been proprietary. The waters were a little muddied by the NES/SNES Classic consoles using a Linux OS but the emulators were their own code.
Their FOSS code is made available when required and is published here:
the family manager is over 18 and has a payment method on file (they manage the family wallet).
the family members are in the family managers country, (and if under 13 the account is created by the manager).
I only have direct experience with managing a kid under 13, in that case I have created the account for him and never entered a payment method on his account. For any purchases he wants to make via the “family wallet” it needs my direct approval, which can be granted by using an app on my device or directly entering my password onto his. After either of us has made a purchase we have a “share with family library” toggle that can share the title with the other family member. Note that this only applies to direct title purchases from the store, if a feature is locked behind IAP it can’t be shared. We have his accompanied locked so he needs my approval for any purchases (including free apps) but this is not required by the platform.
For child accounts the family manager can choose between requiring approval for each of the following on each child account:
All content
All purchases using the family payment method
Only in-app purchases
No approval required
I presume the for adult family members the family manager only has control of the Family Wallet but I don’t have direct experience to confirm.
For child accounts the trust might extend to blocking purchases in the general case and having the kids send purchase requests to the parent for approval.
Of course this leaves the child account restricted is such a manner it would be unappealing if there wasn’t an actual parent-child relationship IRL.
Its a strategic time for this regime to be implemented. With a sequel console on the horizon a lot of households are going to become 2 switch families soon. Anything to make customers more comfortable spending money will speed the uptake.
For PlayStation I liked they way they let each user nominate 1 primary PS4 and 1 primary PS5. They both could play the PS4 library without restriction so the old console was a perfect hand-me-down.
In comparison for Xbox they have maintained that the whole platform is homogeneous with each account only allowed one home console at a time be it One or Series.