Has Nintendo Gone Too Far?

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Credit: Nintendo

Yesterday’s Nintendo Direct was arguably one of its best in a good while, simply because of the proverbial buffet of promising games, additional content and fun amiibo figures shown to eager audiences.

By the way, those Kirby Air Riders amiibo are incredibly Skylanders: Swap Force, don’t you think? As litigation-happy as Nintendo tends to be, it’s rather funny how they outright swiped (swapped? ha!) an entire physical gameplay mechanic from Activision’s popular toys-to-life franchise. I guess it’s only stealing when the plagiarism is related to Pokémon, although maybe they paid Activision for the privilege. Who knows.

Oh, and how could I forget: The dang Virtual Boy is coming back. Yeah, that beautiful red headache machine from 1995? What a time to be alive, man.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, with its seemingly vast open world, moody atmosphere, Vi-O-La motorbike and creepy snow wolves, could be yet another GOTY contender when it finally releases on December 4, 2025. At the very least, it will probably dominate the gaming landscape this holiday season, and I can’t wait to play it.

Then there’s Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, slated for a Spring 2026 launch. The borderline and downright beautiful stop-motion animation in this brand new 2D adventure is immediately striking, as is the sketch-like art direction. While it doesn’t seem to be a proper sequel to the N64’s beloved Yoshi’s Story (much to the dismay of some fans), there’s a cute storybook to explore all the same, and I think this one could be a solid pick for kids and families.

Also presented at yesterday’s Nintendo Direct was fresh DLC for Donkey Kong Bananza entitled DK Island & Emerald Rush, which is the combination of a bright new hub world to explore, as well as a sort of roguelite trial mode wherein you collect green ore while powering up Donkey Kong with different perks and powers for maximum score and ranking. Bananza is such a fantastic game, probably my own game of the year, and it’s awesome to see it already receiving additional content.

I’m not even mentioning other cool and anticipation-worthy announcements, like Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, the quirky Pokémon Pokopia and Mario Tennis Fever with its neat adventure mode. There was even a Switch 2 version of Super Mario Bros. Wonder revealed (with a real talking flower!), plus Mega Dimension DLC locked in for the upcoming Pokémon Legends Z-A.

I do think it’s a bit ridiculous showing DLC for a title that hasn’t even been released yet—I guess we’re milking every last potential dollar out of gamers these days, even pre-dollars—but this perhaps wasn’t the most egregious presentation Nintendo pushed out.

This pretend award, at least according to what people are saying on social media, could potentially belong to the remastered collection that’s officially called Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2. This tidy bundle includes the two lauded Wii games released in 2007 and 2010 respectively, playable on both Switch (1080p) and Switch 2 (4K with a free update, but only while docked, I’m assuming). The bundle will be available soon on October 2, 2025, undoubtedly engineered to start the hype train for an imminent Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is due in 2026.

But back to the people and their pitchforks… à la carte, the remastered Wii titles are priced at $39.99 each, while the bundle itself will save you $10 and set you back $69.99, and note that Nintendo didn’t put these prices in the trailer, probably for good reason. This has understandably caused some mild uproar among particular gamers.

One user brought up images of the original Wii games when they were re-released under the budget Nintendo Selects line, which priced bestselling software at $19.99 or less. Another person mentioned how these titles were $20 each on the Wii U Virtual Console when that online shop was still active.

Granted, this new bundle adds new Rosalina storybook chapters to the games, improved UI, support for upcoming amiibo, and a new assist mode for beginners and casual players alike, which is sounds reasonable to me. Plus, you get to experience these retro titles in 4K on Switch 2, which alone could be worth the price of admission for some gamers. I guess what I’m saying is that these aren’t just straight remasters; you do get some decent quality-of-life updates, improved resolution and some extra content, to boot.

Let’s also not brush aside the fact that these are objectively two of the best 3D platformers ever made, with Super Mario Galaxy sitting at a healthy 97 on Metacritic, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 matching that score with its own beastly 97. Are they worth a bundle price of $70, or $80 separately? That’s a tough one, I’ll admit.

Make no mistake—these aren’t remakes, so they exist in a gray area, and that complicates the price, for sure. These are mostly the old Wii games, but now they run at better resolutions, and the menus are supposedly better, and there’s some additional content to explore, and of course, they run on modern hardware. So there’s convenience to factor in as well. We do love our convenience, don’t we?

For comparison’s sake, though, the now somewhat redundant Super Mario 3D All-Stars also contained the first Super Mario Galaxy and bizarrely went out of print back in 2021. How a digital game goes out of print, I’ll never understand, but now that we’re seeing a new Galaxy bundle, and with Super Mario 64 currently available on NSO (Super Mario Sunshine is coming later, too), the artificial scarcity makes a kind of twisted sense. Nintendo can repackage and resell the first Galaxy in 2025, and really, these kinds of remasters are easy money for publishers.

From a game preservation standpoint, I’m all for re-releasing the classics on current hardware, within reason. It makes us retro gamers happy, and it exposes younger gamers to the titans of gaming history, providing much-needed context for the present landscape. I do wish Nintendo was simply releasing Galaxy and Galaxy 2 on NSO, but I get the need to cash-in separately. I just don’t know how many of us old-timers will partake, given the high prices involved and the availability of the Galaxy titles in our own collections.

Many of us still have our Wii consoles and dusty copies of these excellent Mario games, and it’s never been simpler to hook up aging hardware to modern televisions. Yeah, you won’t get 4K output, or the quality-of-life improvements, but it will potentially save you $70 or even $80 in the long run.

So what do you think? Has Nintendo gone too far with these pricey remasters? Or are the upgrades worth it? Let me know in the comments. Or don’t. Maybe pop some popcorn instead. Or go read in a park. That’s good, too.