Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is an enhanced version of the 2o10 Wii game coming to Switch in 2025, and fans can’t believe Nintendo is charging $60 for it. The price was revealed in the new eShop listing and makes last year’s Metroid Prime Remaster look like an incredible deal by comparison.
Revealed in the big June Nintendo Direct, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD ports the platforming franchise’s 2010 revival to a modern platform with higher resolution graphics and, based on the trailer footage, some notable visual improvements to level backgrounds that give them more detail and depth. It also comes with the additional levels added to the previous 3DS port of the game, as well as a mode that scales down the difficulty. It’s a great game in a beloved franchise that deserved a comeback. But $60?
Some Switch owners on social media immediately scoffed at the price. Many shared screenshots of an old Hard Drive parody titled “Nintendo Holds 12 Hour Meeting to Decide if Company Can Survive Selling ‘Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze’ for Less Than $60.” Fans on Reddit were also flummoxed. “I don’t understand why Nintendo gets away with this,” wrote one user. “If Ubisoft or EA pulled this type of stuff, you’d see dozens of boycott posts a day.”
You can see the logic in the company’s thinking. Since the sequel, Tropical Freeze, was priced at $60, doing the same for Donkey Kong Country Returns HD helps signal that it’s a similar value proposition, and deserves the same premium. On the other hand, Tropical Freeze was a Wii U port that added more to the previous version. It was also arguably a better game.
You can see a lot of examples of Nintendo experimenting with variable pricing for its back catalog. Mario vs. Donkey Kong was a remake of a Game Boy Advance Game and it was only $50. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp was $60 but it included visual overhauls of two games. And then there was Metroid Prime Remastered, an immaculate re-rendering of the GameCube classic that was only $40.
That’s the one that has people scratching their heads the most in comparison to Returns HD. Does Nintendo just have less faith in the Metroid brand or did it just want to see what would happen if it sold Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’s predecessor at a much more aggressive price? Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, another remaster of a GameCube game, was $60 after all. Such is the power of the mustachioed plumber, even when he’s a 2D cutout. Then again, the Super Mario 3D All-Stars, a collection containing Super Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy, was $60 for three games. Who can know the mind of Nintendo? Not me.
It’s hard to get too mad at the company for trying to preserve the value of its back catalog, even if I’ll stick to my 3DS copy of the game at that price. But what it does do is make the anomaly of Metroid Prime feel like even more of a steal. The game’s even on sale right now for just $34 on the eShop. Hopefully, some potential Metroid Prime 2 and 3 remasters keep the trend going. Maybe they’ll even get bundled for $60 for both. A Nintendo fan can dream.