Nintendo blocks digital Switch game sales from all European retailers (Nintendo published games only)

Double down on switch tax

Checking on ShopTo and the games are now gone.

CDKeys still seem to have them up though not sure how long that will last.

Winckle wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Gaming needs to either fully buy in to digital or actually find an effective way for both physical and digital markets to co-exist. Right now it feels like the two are fighting against each other and that is holding the overall market back from progressing

You can see the benefits in the PC market, which is essentially all digital outside of a few niche releases.

The problem is though, there's no sole maker of "the PC", so the digital marketplace is open. It's competitive and good for the consumer.


In the console digital marketplace, you have a Sony console, you have to go to Sony's store. You want a Nintendo game, you go to Nintendo's eShop.

Do we trust these companies to price things fairly if they are the only ones able to sell them?

I know some say getting rid of physical games and the pandering to the high street will allow console games.to be cheaper digitally. But then I look at the ridiculous "sale" prices on Nintendo games, them stopping retailers form selling their digital games cheaply and their precious for price-fixing and I worry about what would happen if these companies are the sole provider of digital content.

I agree with this. Having gone all digital on Switch places like shopto and cdkeys would often be £10 to £15 cheaper for Nintendo releases at launch making them more reasonably priced. Having said that cdkeys don't seem to have delisted their Ninty switch games yet, animal crossing etc.. was still on there lastnight when I looked. Though I guess chances of them getting any new ones are slim to none now.

This has really pissed me off. The Nintendo tax is ridiculous.

Digital Codes are far too expensive through official channels (alrogifh that’s still applicable to Sony and others) for games that are years old.

There should be an incentive for purchasing digital over physical. There’s no indication selling digital only would cause this to happen either, I don’t agree with that argument. This just means to me I’ll be purchasing physical when discounted.

I don’t know why I’m so angry

It's a dick move for sure, but I don't think it's particularly surprising.

Whether it's DRM, trying to clamp down on second-hand game sales, or digital distribution, the intention of publishers has long been to control how people access and play games. With digital distribution you can fix prices and eliminate competition, so of course it's something they've been wanting to push, and I think it'll only get worse now that we're seeing digital-only consoles being offered. I'm sure people will snap them up and give more reason for publishers to push digital only, so it feels like the start of a downward spiral in this respect.

I mean, you could see it was bullshit when digital games were being sold at the same price as their physical counterparts, yet people still bought them. And now we're seeing digital games that cost more than the physical versions, £60 or so, with no option for a cheaper second-hand copy, or hunting around for the best deal.

I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

The last time I tried purchasing from a region outside of Europe/South Africa it wouldnt accept any payment method because the payment method was from outside of the region.

I have got a US PayPal account now though linked to my Revolut card so I could probably use the American/Canadian/Mexican region store.

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

Thanks

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

Just wqit until they block it and all your game vecome unplayable. Do you trust Nontwndo not to do that? I strawberry floating don't.

Pedz wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

Just wqit until they block it and all your game vecome unplayable. Do you trust Nontwndo not to do that? I strawberry floating don't.

Yeah there is some risk of that happening undoubtedly, the fallout if they did it now would be astronomical though.

So expect them to do it any day soon!

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

How do you get around the issue of it blocking you purchasing for another country? PayPal and Revolut don't let me do it as I have UK accounts for both.

Rocsteady wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

How do you get around the issue of it blocking you purchasing for another country? PayPal and Revolut don't let me do it as I have UK accounts for both.

Where are you looking to buy from? Revolut has worked for most places I've tried but isn't accepted everywhere - Mexico being one of the places where I struggled with it.

Jenuall wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

How do you get around the issue of it blocking you purchasing for another country? PayPal and Revolut don't let me do it as I have UK accounts for both.

Where are you looking to buy from? Revolut has worked for most places I've tried but isn't accepted everywhere - Mexico being one of the places where I struggled with it.

Trying New Zealand the now as Burnout is on sale there.

Sony rarely sells digital codes for games on the UK/EU front from the beginning. Since I bought US version first TLOU remastered digital code from cdkeys years ago when it came out for less than 15 quid, there haven’t seem to be any more digital games added.

I don’t know why. The losses would be coming from the ones who sell it, not the publishers surely.

Oh well, Nintendo have stopped me from buying their own digital games in the future.

At least with Sony you can essentially 'double discount' as you can get credit from CDKeys or Shopto at a slight discount (eg £35 for £31), then they also have half decent sales occasionally where big system seller games (God of War, Spider-man, Uncharted, Horizon etc) for mid-teens/ early twenties within a few years of launch.

I'm happy to have a digital version of a game if it essentially comes close to the amount it might have cost me new, minus what I would get selling it on once I'm done.

Nintendo, not so much with the sales on digital from what I can tell - so might as well go physical so I've got the option to resell (except Mario Kart, I got that digitally through CDkeys because I needed it quickly, and I'm never going to get rid of it while I've got my switch).

Hell, I just paid a tenner more for Breath of the Wild this week than The Last of Us 2 - which is madness. But I did it, so they obviously know what they're doing. (Both were physical)

Rocsteady wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Prototype wrote:

KjGarly wrote:I think people will just wait on eShop vouchers going cheap and stocking up. That and buying from other regions (South African eShop tends to be cheaper and PayPal works fine)

How does it work buying from other eshops?

I really don't wanna get myself locked out with all the games i've bought on the EU store!

Dead simple and you don't get locked out of anything - I've bought games from about 8 or 9 regions now and they are all available all of the time regardless of which region I'm currently set to.

Just go to https://accounts.nintendo.com/profile/edit and set your profile to which ever region you want. Next time you login to the eShop you will be browsing it from the new region with all of their prices. Only thing you need to make sure is the you have a valid payment method for the region - PayPal usually works or I use a Revolut account to buy most of my stuff.

You can go here https://eshop-prices.com/?currency=GBP to compare prices across regions, it's definitely worth it - I've regularly saved at least £10 on EU prices and have probably saved well over £100 by doing this for the last 3 years

How do you get around the issue of it blocking you purchasing for another country? PayPal and Revolut don't let me do it as I have UK accounts for both.

Where are you looking to buy from? Revolut has worked for most places I've tried but isn't accepted everywhere - Mexico being one of the places where I struggled with it.

Trying New Zealand the now as Burnout is on sale there.

I don't think I've ever got anything from New Zealand. Europe is usually a safe bet to get a good deal and for the payment to work easily, Norway tends to be a winner. Or South Africa is a good one too.

Pedz wrote:Do you trust Nontwndo not to do that? I strawberry floating don't.

Sega does what Nontwndon't