Last week, Nintendo announced a big sale on its games and products as a sort of “thank you” to customers who it doesn’t want to give any part of its recent tariff refund back to. It’s called the “Customer Appreciation Sale,” it runs until September 26, and it has some pretty decent deals on a bunch of the best games you can buy for the original Switch.
The sale is offering up to 30 percent off on everything from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to the cardboard that lets you properly play Virtual Boy games on Switch Online. It’s the type of discount we normally see on Nintendo stuff around the holidays, but extended to even its best-selling games and a lot of old inventory that has probably been sitting around for a minute. Here are the notable games worth checking out. I’ve grouped them into three categories:
Must-Haves
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Bundle (Game + Booster Pass) – $59.48 (normally $84.98)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons Bundle (Game + DLC) – $59.48 (normally $84.98)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – $48.99 (normally $69.99)
- Super Mario Odyssey – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
Great Games That Aren’t For Everybody
- Splatoon 3 – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Metroid Dread – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Pikmin 3 Deluxe – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Super Mario Party Jamboree – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
Wild Card Picks
- Astral Chain – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Special Episode Bundle – $32.18 (normally $45.98)
- Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door – $41.99 (normally $59.99)
A brief explainer. It sucks that Nintendo is forcing you to pick up DLC bundles to get the overall discount, but the DLC is worth it in both the case of Animal Crossing and Mario Kart 8. It is not worth it in the case of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is why I did not include it. No shade is intended in the “Great Games That Aren’t For Everybody” section. Each one of those games is top-notch (except for Super Mario Party Jamboree, which is mostly good for a Mario Party game). But unlike the games in the Must-Haves section, which I think any Switch should have installed, these vary depending on genre preferences and tastes.
Metroid Dread is excellent, but if you don’t like 2D Metroidvanias, absolutely don’t get Metroid Dread. The final section is just some of my personal shoutouts for Switch games that rarely get discounts or might otherwise go overlooked. It is heavily skewed toward JRPG-adjacent games. I almost chose Paper Mario: The Origami King, which is also on sale, but went with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door as the overall superior Paper Mario game (even if it’s more dated). We might never get an Astral Chain 2, and it’s rarely on sale, so here’s your chance to give PlatinumGames’ cop adventure about fighting interdimensional creatures a shot.
