Will Nintendo Switch Get Nintendo Selects or Player’s Choice?

There is nothing better than being able to save a little money on a game, especially when that game is timeless like most first party Nintendo titles. Sadly, with the exception of a few times during the year, Switch games have are always full price, in fact some are even going up.

In May of 1996, Nintendo started a line of first party Super Nintendo games that had reached a certain sales threshold, discounted the title and labeled it “Player’s Choice”. This was a very consumer friendly move that gave some people a chance to be able to purchase the game at a slightly lower price. This was a win/win system as most of the titles had already sold the majority that they would at full price and lowering the retail price permanently would help boost sales.

The Player’s Choice line of video games came to the SNES in 1996 and in the first few months would have some amazing titles including Super Mario Kart, Super Mario All Stars and Zelda: Link to The Past just to list a few. The line on SNES would eventually go on to have 17 titles in North America. This trend would continue on the Game Boy in 1996 as well, N64 in 1998, GameCube in 2003, Game Boy Advance in 2006, Wii in 2011, with the 3DS and WiiU happening in 2016.

It began by celebrating the titles that had sold over a million copies, with that sales threshold lowering eventually and became quite foggy about what qualified by the end. Considering that there has been Player’s Choice or Nintendo Selects on every system since the SNES except for the DS, is there a chance that a program like this would come to the Switch?

The glass half empty here is the fact that the only other time since 1996 that Nintendo didn’t do this program was on the Nintendo DS. This relevant because the Nintendo DS is Nintendo’s best selling system to date with 154.02 million sold and 50 million units of software shy of a billion in sales. DS systems and its software were selling at incredible rate and there was no need to incentivize customers as it would only hurt total revenue.

The Nintendo Switch is in nearly the exact same position as it’s currently the second best selling console for Nintendo in terms of hardware with 122 million with only minor signs of slowing and likely has already become the first Nintendo console to sell over a billion units in software.

This doesn’t rule out Nintendo Selects coming to the Nintendo Switch, as without a doubt they want the system to become the best selling Nintendo system of all time, but they are also aware that it has a chance to become the best selling console ever by surpassing the PS2 that sold around 155 million. Nintendo has been selling around 20-25 million units per year and one way to keep momentum going would be to add Nintendo selects to the Switch.

Out of the eight systems that had Player’s Choice or Nintendo Selects, the average time it took to come to each system was about 4.5 years, which we have already blown by on the Switch, however, it took 7 years for the program to come to the Game Boy. This means there is precedent that it could still happen, especially if Nintendo is determined to make the Nintendo Switch the best selling console of all time.

How long it took for each system to get the discount line.North American dates

SNES 5 years

N64 2

GC 2

Wii 5

WiiU 4

GB 7

GBA 5

3DS 5