 What if I were to tell you that Nintendo is finally after all of these years about to drop a discount line of games? Wait a second. I feel like this feels familiar. I've been rocking Nintendo for over 30 years of my life and I- you know what? I think they call these Nintendo selects. Now look, nothing has been officially announced by Nintendo at this point, but fans have started to notice that a bunch of major Nintendo owned and published games for Nintendo Switch no longer have physical copies available. And we're talking games that even came out last year from Nintendo as it looks like the physical copies are even being delisted at several retailers. What is going on? This is the company that doesn't discount their games just had a holiday season where some of these games were even available. What is happening? Well, let's dive into this post over on Reset Era where we have all of the details necessary. So as you can see here, we've got Nintendo doing this thing. And look, it says Paper Mario the Origami King North America physical release is out of print now. Perhaps Nintendo doesn't want multiple Paper Mario titles. So you can get a copy at eBay, 50 bucks, etc. But yes, this is one of the games that's being delisted. Now delisted doesn't mean it's not available at your local retailers. It just means that there are some online retailers that no longer are carrying copies. And yes, your local retailer once they run out won't be able to get more copies. Strolling down the same thing happened to Pikmin 3 Deluxe. You can see unavailable at Amazon, unavailable at Best Buy, removed from the system entirely at GameStop, and also removed from the system at Target. Yeah, this is very much a delisting of physical copies. Next up, how about Metroid Dread? Removed from the system at Target, removed from the system at GameStop, unavailable at Walmart, unavailable at Amazon. Now it might show available for like local, if like your local warehouse for Amazon or your local Walmart has copies of course. But yes, it appears that the physical copies of Metroid Dread are no longer around. Man, that was a game with a year game not too long ago. But that's not it. Because, well, this is just three of them. A shadow link over on a Discord server for recent era, notice some other things and this is what got posted. So look, we already know about Paper Mario the Origami King, but what about Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is no longer being listed on Amazon or is listed as unavailable? Same thing with Link's Awakening 2019, that remaster. What about Kirby Star Allies, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Fire Emblem 3 Houses, and get this one. This just released last year, like a year ago. To date, Fire Emblem Engage, Yoshi's Crafted World, WarioWare, Get It Together, Nintendo Switch Sports, and here's a big one, Super Mario Odyssey. They literally just did digital bundles with this last holiday season and now the physical copies are being delisted and no longer available. Splatoon 2, which makes a lot of sense with Splatoon 3 out to be completely fair. Super Mario Maker 2 and Mario Striker's Battle League. Guys, that is a ton of games being delisted physically. Now, obviously they're all still available right on the Nintendo Switch eShop after MSRP prices unless Nintendo is having to run a sale right now, but what is very clear is one thing. One thing's in common with all of these games. If this is the only reason they ever get delisted, one thing's in common. None of them are selling very well from a physical standpoint today. Nintendo bases delisting games and stop printing copies of games when there's just no demand. If retailers aren't ordering more copies from Nintendo, then Nintendo sees that as why are we going to continue to make copies of this thing that retailers don't want to get? Remember, Nintendo gets their money for the games not when you go to the store and buy it, but when the store purchases the copy to put on their shelves. So if stores aren't putting in purchase orders for copies, there's no reason for Nintendo to keep making them. Now, obviously there are ways Nintendo could combat this. They could do what the rest of the industry does and just lower the prices of the games and then that could create extra demand, then you get extra orders, you make less money per copy, but hey, you go ahead and sell more physical copies, but instead, Nintendo just chooses to delist instead. Now, Nintendo in the past has a history of this discount line of games called Nintendo Selects and it always starts by delisting physical copies of the current ones and bringing them back with a slightly updated box art, the Nintendo Selects logo, and generally selling them for $19.99. Now again, this hasn't been announced and it's possible it could be announced at the next Nintendo Direct, but Nintendo always seemingly, not always, but seemingly does this most of the time right at the end of the generation to try to generate some extra sales for what they'll call the best sellers of the platform, but you'll note some games aren't delisted. Breath of the Wild? Still selling plenty of physical copies to warrant still being out there at full MSRP. What about, I don't know, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? That was a damn Wii U game. Yeah, guess what? Still selling enough physical copies to warrant still being on the shelf at MSRP. So I do want to note that while all these games are delisted, it doesn't mean they're all going to come back in a Nintendo Selects line. Now, if I had to make a guess, what ones are going to make it in? Look, you're going to talk about the biggest of the bigs, right? You might see Pikmin 3 Deluxe come back in some form, maybe even they add in the OnePlus 2 HD and make it a triple pack for $19.99. I can see Nintendo trying to maybe sucker that one in there, but you know your Mario Odyssey, right? That could come back in a Nintendo Select. Your Link's Awakening, your Metroid Dread could come back in a Nintendo Select line. Maybe Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I'm going to maybe on that one, but it is possible. I could see them taking Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Fire Emblem Engage, putting them together in a combo pack for $19.99. Maybe that one even goes $29.99 if they want to say, hey, Engage isn't that old of a game, so we should charge a little bit more premium for that one. I can see that happening in Nintendo Switch Sports is an obvious one I can see coming back at a $19.99 price point. Same with Super Mario Maker 2. Some of these other ones though, like I'm not so sure we're going to see them come back like Kirby Star Allies. Not sure on that one. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. It would be the third time around trying to sell that game. I sort of think they might let that one go. Paper Mario maybe comes back. Not 100% sold on that. So I don't, again, you know, WarioWare get it together. I don't think that one's going to come back in a Nintendo Select. So again, I don't think all of these games being delisted means they're all going to be options for Nintendo Selects because they're only going to want to put the games they think would actually sell some copies at that $20 price point. And again, this assumes that Nintendo does Nintendo Selects and then charges $20 like they've done in the past and we're talking USD. So it is fascinating though, looking at the fact that Nintendo took these down in the first place and sort of did it silently. There was no announcement. This wasn't like the limited release they did for Super Mario 3D All-Stars where they gave us a finite date. Hey, we're no longer making physical copies as of this date. A lot of us think they actually were still making physical copies a little bit past that date. Or because of FOMO, retailers ordered so many of those physical copies that, you know, they just had some for years to sit on shelves. You can't get it anymore. But at least Nintendo technically warned us. They didn't warn us. And that's the one thing is some people saw this news and I saw a little panic going on. People were like, wait a second, wait a second. I bought the digital copy of Metroid Drebber. I was always planning to eventually pick up the physical copy and just keep a sealed copy around. I was always planning to go get another copy of Mario Odyssey. I was always planning to go get another copy of Link's Awakening. And yeah, this is what happens, guys. When people stop buying the physical games, they're going to just stop printing them. So I want to note a few things. One, there's no guarantee we're going to get Nintendo Selects. Let's just be clear about that. This is not an announcement by Nintendo. This is an assumption because this is very similar to what Nintendo did with Wii U, Wii, 3DS, et cetera, where they created that Nintendo Select line on games that basically stop selling, right? They stop selling massive discount rerelease at the $20 price point. So we think Nintendo might attempt a similar strategy here, but we don't know. And even then it's not going to be all of these games. It might only be six of them, right? Just grab a six pack of games. I don't know what Nintendo's going to do. It would be a weird though that, like, think about this for a moment. The best selling 3D Mario game of all time is Super Mario Odyssey. It is still the current generation. We do not technically have the next generation system launched. And we can't buy physical copies anymore unless your local retailer happens to have one. That's crazy to me, right? That's insane to me that that's a thing right now. But another thing is, and this is the other twist on this, is that when Nintendo starts delisting a, I mean, they're doing this all recently. This just happened. This wasn't happening in 2023. You can still get physical copies of all these games in 2023. Why is it happening now in 2024? Well, the other reason obviously that Nintendo does all this stuff towards the end of a generation is they are preparing to launch a next generation system. And when that's happening, they got to start creating more shelf space. There's going to be new games coming in for the new system. They got to make sure there's shelf space at these retailers for those physical copies of the brand new thing. So that's also another reason you'll see oftentimes a lot of delisting like this at the end of a generation. Nintendo's just making sure we have physical shelf space for everything coming on the next generation system. So there is that as well. So I'm just saying, like, it's sort of a double whammy. This is just another sign from Nintendo that the new system is definitely coming this year. And also a possible sign that we might get a limited run Nintendo selects line for cheap. And that would actually might even go over well heading into the next holiday season. The other theory, of course, and people think is some of these best sellers are going to come back and deluxe 4k versions on switch shoe. You know, I mean, can't dismiss it, right? Like, this is Nintendo after all. And with a new gen coming, who the hell knows what they're going to do? Anyways, guys, let me know you think about this down in the comments below. Are you disappointed by this? Are you excited at the prospect of potentially getting a Nintendo selects line again? What other games do you think Nintendo might eventually discontinue as the year goes on? Because I think this is just the beginning. I don't think this list of games we have currently is the end. I think by summer, we can see this list maybe even double in size where Nintendo is really delisting and stop making a ton of physical copies for games. I wouldn't be surprised if later this year physical copies of Breath of the Wild are made anymore or physical copies of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, etc. etc. So I don't think this is the end. I think it's going to continue throughout the year and that's just what happens as you enter a new generation. Thank you guys so much for being here and I will catch you guys in the next video. Oh, by the way, before we get out, we have a podcast tonight. Hope you guys tune in. We have eight guests. Well, technically, there's me. So then there's seven guests, although one's also Eric. So I guess six guests within Andres Restart and Jake are sort of regular. So then four guests, whatever. The point is we have eight people on tonight's podcast. It's our largest cast of characters ever. We're going to have a huge Pokemon topic. We're going to be talking about the future of Pokemon. What's happening this year? What's going to happen in future years? The three different pillars and directions Pokemon's going in. That's going to be a big topic tonight. We're also going to be diving into another thing, Nintendo working with some partner companies, who we want them to work with and what franchises we want to see maybe come back in some way or be handled by these, you know, different companies. So I'm really excited about that. All I'm going to do right now is kind of step away from the mic, let you guys enjoy your day. We'll see you tonight on the Nintendo Prime podcast. Later everyone.