Could Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s file size have played a factor in its price?

Nintendo has opened up pre-orders for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. According to the game’s store page, the game file size is 18.2 GB, which is even larger than the 14.4 GB file size of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom will be priced at $69.99, $10 more than usual for Nintendo titles on the Switch, and it’s possible that the file size exceeding 16 GB may have been a factor in the price increase.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the much-anticipated sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Link, who has gained new powers, ventures through the sprawling landscapes of Hyrule and islands floating in the vast skies as he confronts the malevolent forces that threaten the kingdom.

Although storage space on the Nintendo Switch can be expanded with microSD cards, the console’s built-in storage is significantly lower than that of other consoles, and all games on the platform are released with compressed file sizes. Nintendo, of course, knows the characteristics of its own hardware very well, and has a reputation for its ability to compress file sizes. For example, Super Mario Odyssey and Splatoon 3 are bothunder 6 GB.

Some recent titles that had bigger file sizes include Xenoblade Chronicles 3 at 14 GB, Fire Emblem Engage at 13.8 GB, and Bayonetta 3 at 14.5 GB. All three games include a lot of cutscenes and voice acting, so the larger file sizes are understandable, but even still, they come in under 16 GB.

Nintendo Switch Game Cards come in a variety of capacities; however, cards larger than 16 GB are significantly more expensive, so it makes sense for Nintendo to keep its games below the 16 GB mark to keep physical manufacturing costs down. That said, Tears of the Kingdom has easily surpassed that file size.

While file sizes of over 16 GB are rare for Nintendo, they are much more common for third-party Switch titles. It’s possible that the $10 price jump to $70 may be due in part to the increased cost of manufacturing the game cards.

It should be noted that the file size that is currently shown on the game’s store page is an estimate. A game’s file size is sometimes changed as it approaches release, so it may be wise to check the game’s file size once more right before launch.

A bigger file size does not necessarily make for a more enjoyable game, but it can be seen as a promising sign that it is larger than Breath of the Wild, which itself had a huge amount of content. At this point in time, Tears of the Kingdom has the largest file size out of any first-party Switch game in Nintendo’s history, so we can only wonder just how big the game will be.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is scheduled for release on May 12.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-02-10 11:59 JST)