Physical editions of several popular Switch games appear to be out of print right now, and it has fans wondering if a Nintendo Selects-style repackaging of these titless might be imminent ahead of the rumored Switch successor.
(Editor’s note: This story relates to stock levels at American retailers. I’m yet to confirm any similar stock shortfalls in Australia, but will update this piece if/when I do. — David)
Nintendeal, a Twitter account dedicated to highlighting sales and deals on Nintendo games and products, started noting that some of Nintendo’s first-party games are out of stock at multiple retailers. After Nintendeals highlighted games like Paper Mario: The Origami King to Metroid Dread, Discord user AShadowLink (shoutout to Neoxon on ResetEra) was able to round up a list of affected games that appear to no longer be available at American outlets stores like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and GameStop, though each game’s availability varies. You can check each game’s status across multiple retailers at Deku Deals.
- Paper Mario: The Origami King
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019)
- Pikmin 3 Deluxe
- Metroid Dread
- Kirby Star Allies
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses
- Fire Emblem: Engage
- Yoshi’s Crafted World
- WarioWare: Get it Together!
- Nintendo Switch Sports
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Splatoon 2
- Super Mario Maker 2
- Mario Strikers: Battle League
As you can see, there’s some heavy hitters affected here, like Super Mario Odyssey. One of the most surprising is Fire Emblem: Engage, which only launched last year.
So should you panic buy these games? Are they about to become collector’s items due to some artificial scarcity scheme? As users on ResetEra and Nintendeals have pointed out, it might not be so dire, as Nintendo may be prepping to re-release these with new SKUs, possibly with branding that makes it clear they’ll be playable on both the Switch and the rumoured successor.
If you’ve ever seen a “Greatest Hits” or “Nintendo Selects” banner on a game at a store, these are marked differently in a retailer’s system, and may even have completely different barcodes to scan at the register. As stores phase out the old copies, they’ll often get pulled from shelves, and that’s the case for online stores, as well. While you probably don’t need to panic about these games going away anytime soon, they might have some real ugly branding on them soon, so if you want better cover art, be on the lookout for clean copies at your local game store of choice.
We’ve reached out to Nintendo for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
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