Nintendo will retail the Switch 2 for $449.99 at launch, which is significantly higher than the original Switch's $299 price tag. A separate bundle that includes the new "Mario Kart World" game will also be available for $499.99.

Mario Kart 8 and its Deluxe update have been around so long it's easy to forget that the game actually predates the Switch and can trace its origins way back to the Wii U. But every good run must come to an end,

The justification for Mario Kart's price hike is the same that publishers offered for the rise to $70: increasing development costs and inflation. Both of those factors are real and undeniable. It now costs close to a billion dollars to develop a Call of Duty game, and the value of the dollar has fallen by a third in the last decade.