Is Nintendo making a mistake by charging for upgraded Switch 2 titles?

During Wednesday’s Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo revealed that some games for the original Switch could be upgraded to enhanced Switch 2 Editions by purchasing an upgrade pack. This isn’t surprising, coming from a company that has long loved to repackage old games for new consoles and sell them to fans a second (or third, or fourth) time. But it left some observers feeling Nintendo was nickel-and-diming its fans — and it’s a strategy that comes with risks. 

When launching a console that’s fully backward-compatible with its predecessor’s games, console makers have some tricky choices to make. One of the trickiest involves how to handle pricing and upgrades when there are versions of the same game for both platforms, particularly if they’re increasing the price of games on the new system (as Nintendo is).

Both Sony and Microsoft were faced with this conundrum when they launched their most recent consoles, and they made very different choices. Microsoft’s policy is both generous and simple: Any Xbox One games are upgraded to Xbox Series X editions automatically and at no extra cost. If you own the newer console, you can rest easy that you are always playing the best version of the game without thinking about it, and without shelling out for it.

Sony’s policy is a bit less generous, and much more confusing. Some upgrades from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 versions of games are free. (Quite a few, to be fair.) Many are not; it costs $10 to upgrade a copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man or Grand Theft Auto 5 to the PS5 version, for example. Sometimes this upgrade path was only available for a limited time. Sometimes it’s not available at all, and your only option, if you already own the game on PS4, is to buy it all over again on PS5.

Understandably, this messy, costly system didn’t go down well with PlayStation players. When Horizon Forbidden West was offered with no upgrade path, fans were so upset that Sony was forced to back down, offer a free upgrade, and pledge to always offer upgrades in the future (albeit for a price). This is the minefield that Nintendo is stepping into.

There are a few caveats, however. Firstly, Nintendo did not announce pricing for its upgrade packs, and how players feel about the upgrades will depend to a large extent on where this pricing lands. Also, will the upgrade to the Switch 2 Edition of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which improves performance and comes with some companion-app features, cost the same as the Switch 2 upgrade for Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which adds a whole new expansion to the game? Maybe, maybe not. To complicate things further, the Switch 2 Edition upgrades for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will be included in a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription, but others won’t.

That’s not all. Nintendo is also offering a second tier of free Switch 2 patches for games like Super Mario Odyssey and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. These don’t count as full Switch 2 Editions, but they will “improve playability” and “may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare,” depending on the game.

As with PS5, it’s quite a confusing picture — especially since we don’t yet know pricing, or how third-party publishers will opt to handle Switch 2 Editions. (On PlayStation, many — if not most — opted to offer free upgrades.) But there is one important factor that distinguishes Nintendo’s strategy from Sony’s.

The only enhancements offered by many PS5 upgrades were in terms of visuals and performance: higher resolutions and frame rates, ray-traced lighting, or new performance and quality modes. Players felt they were being asked to spend $10 per game to unlock the power of the console they had already bought.

Nintendo seems to have a policy that visual upgrades aren’t enough for a Switch 2 Edition. The Zelda games come with the (admittedly not very compelling) Zelda Notes companion features. Super Mario Party Jamboree has a new play mode, and makes extensive use of Switch 2 features like the camera and mouse controls. Kirby and the Forgotten Land has a whole new story. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has mouse controls. It seems clear that Nintendo always wants to add value in a Switch 2 Edition, either through additional content, use of Switch 2’s unique features (beyond its increased processing power), or both. Some of these releases — Kirby and Mario Party especially — would seem to be on a par with the Switch’s Deluxe editions of Wii U games like Mario Kart 8 and New Super Mario Bros. U. (There’s one exception to this rule: The Switch 2 Edition of Pokémon Legends: Z-A does not feature any upgrades beyond a visual one, for now at least.)

That should make the upgrade cost, however much it may be, easier to stomach. (The upgrade cost will surely make all that extra development time easier for Nintendo to stomach.) It’s a fairer proposition than Sony’s, if hardly a less confusing one. But Xbox owners — and PC gamers, for that matter, who never have to worry about such things — would be justified in feeling quite smug by comparison.