Don’t Buy Pokémon Pokopia From Amazon

The Nintendo Switch 2’s Pokémon Pokopia launched last week with a $69.99 physical edition and quickly proved extraordinarily popular. Boxed copies have sold out on the official Nintendo store, and Amazon has raised the boxed price to $79.99. The boxed version doesn’t contain a cartridge; it includes a game-key card that prompts your Switch 2 to download the game from the same online store you’d use for the digital edition.

This is Nintendo’s first use of game-key cards, a move that followed the use of cards by third-party developers and was driven in part by the rumored high cost of Nintendo’s 64 GB carts. Many buyers still want a boxed version for a physical object or because it can be more easily shared between devices, though the old advantage of continuing to play after a store shuts down is irrelevant here.

Amazon’s pricing is opaque, and listings can obscure whether an item is shipped by a third party, making it unclear why the price has been marked up.

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