The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom appeared available for pre-order online at a higher-than-normal price point via the Nintendo eShop some hours ago, leading to speculations of a price increase being announced soon. The announcement should likely arrive during today’s 40-minute Nintendo Direct, during which “roughly 40 minutes of information mostly focused on Nintendo Switch games launching in the first half of 2023” will be revealed.
Tears of the Kingdom pre-orders could receive potential price hike
Originally spotted by Wario64 on Twitter, the increased price was swiftly removed and replaced with only ‘releasing in 2023’ currently visible.
The potential $70 pricing of Tears of the Kingdom will likely come as a shock to some, as this would mark the first time Nintendo has increased their usual $59.99 price point for standard first-party games.
Popular Twitter game sales analyst Benji-Sales corroborated the listing, noting that retailers “GameStop, Best Buy, and Amazon have stopped taking pre-orders on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom”.
Benji also reckons we’ll be seeing a potential $10 price increase of up to $69.99 announced at the Nintendo Direct, which is looking to be the company’s largest showing for the year, given that they’ve passed on an E3 2023 showing. While potential Direct leaks have already started appearing for games like Pikmin 4 and we could also see Metroid Prime 4 finally being given a release date, we’ll need to wait for the full show later today.
