- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is priced as a $70 game overseas.
- $70 may not be the new norm for first party Nintendo games.
- The latest Switch adventure for Link and co also appeared in the latest Nintendo Direct.
It has been quite the week for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with a new trailer finally released, but the focus instead shifting to the price of the game.
American listings for the latest game in the franchise were appearing as $70, instead of the de facto $60 price that we have come to expect. Many of these listings disappeared as Tears of the Kingdom appeared in a trailer for the latest Nintendo Direct livestream.
After the livestream the fears of the $70 price returned as many stores – including official avenues to buy the game from Nintendo – returned with the new, higher price.
So what does this mean for South African Switch owners who want to play the game when it launches later this year? Before we look at the pricing it’s worth keeping in mind that the local pricing of Nintendo hardware and software has never stuck closely to any overseas pricing as we, unfortunately, pay more than many in other countries despite our poorer economy.
At the time of writing the old standard for new games, $60, converts to ~R1 064. The new higher price we see many games releasing at, $70, converts to ~R1 241.
In South Africa it seems that the standard price of Tears of the Kingdom is around R1 399. Below are prices from several local sources to buy the game.
Sold directly by Nintendo
Sold by third party retailers
- BTGames | Physical copy | R1 399 | Pre-order sale of R1 299
- Nexus | Physical copy | R1 275
- Game 4U | Physical copy | R1 399
For those unaware the South African Nintendo store which we mention above is a physical store located in the Sandton City shopping centre. Also known as the “Nintendo Switch Pop-Up Zone” (a misnomer since the store has been around for years at this point), the store also services all of South Africa through its online store, so those outside of Gauteng can also buy physical items directly from Nintendo and have them delivered.
Some items are exclusive to this store making it worth checking out from time to time, even if you prefer to shop elsewhere.
As for third party retailers we also see them sticking to the higher R1 399 price, with the exception of Nexus which is slightly lower while not being marked as a pre-order sale like BTGames.
Other retailers like Takealot, Loot, Game, Makro, CNA and others don’t have the game listed on their respective websites just yet, so we will have to wait and see what price there stores end up on as we get closer to the release of this game.
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom releases exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on 12th May 2023.
Outside of his specific title, it’s a bit up in the air when it comes to standardised pricing of Switch games going into the future. Nintendo has released the incredibly vague statement that pricing is done on a “on a case-by-case basis” so again we need to be patient to see how this new world of higher game prices will shake out.
