BAFTA — the UK's independent arts charity celebrating excellence in film, games, and TV — has just revealed the most influential video game of all time... and it's probably not what you think it is.

BAFTA polled the British public to discover that while games like GTA, Tetris, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Doom, and Half-Life 2 do make the list, the top as ranked by the number of votes received is Shenmue.

Action-adventure game Shenmue released in 1999 on Dreamcast. It follows Ryo Hazuki's quest to avenge his father's death in what BAFTA calls "a detailed open-world setting that truly captures the essence of Yokosuka in the ‘80s."

"Pioneering first-person shooter" Doom secured the runner-up prize, whilst 1985's Super Mario Bros. took the bronze.

Half-Life and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time round out the rest of the top five, respectively.

Interestingly, games like Grand Theft Auto 5, Halo, and Fortnite are conspicuously absent.

“I am deeply honoured and grateful that Shenmue has been selected as the Most Influential Video Game of All Time," said Yu Suzuki, creator of the Shenmue franchise.

"At its inception, we set out to explore the question, 'How real can a game become?,' aiming to portray a world and story unprecedented in scale and detail. This distinction serves as a powerful reminder that the challenge we embraced continues to resonate with and inspire so many people even today. It is truly the greatest of encouragement.

“Above all, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the fans around the world who have continued to love and support Shenmue," Suzuki added. "Your passion and encouragement have guided this journey every step of the way. And the story is not over yet, there is more to come! Thank you very much!”

The 2025 BAFTA Game Awards are set to take place on Tuesday April 8, 2025. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, Astro Bot, and Still Wakes the Deep lead the nominations with 11, eight, and eight nominations respectively. Thank Goodness You're Here! also received seven nominations, Black Myth: Wukong six, and Helldivers 2 is up for five awards.

2024 BAFTA Game Awards winners included Baldur's Gate 3, which secured five wins, including Best Game, with other wins for Alan Wake 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Viewfinder.

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Dang. $80 for Mario Kart World, huh?

Today's Nintendo Direct and subsequent information dump answered many, many burning questions we've been asking about the Nintendo Switch 2, such as launch line-up and release date. Among those was the question of price, not only for the system itself but also for the games and accessories we're going to need alongside it. And it's a good thing that the rest of the Direct was so enjoyable, because Nintendo needed to do some work to justify some of these prices.

Phew! That's a lot to dish out to play Nintendo games, even assuming most people are just going for the console, a game or two, and maybe a spare controller. Most notable in that list of prices is what's going on with the console itself. $450 isn't far off what a bunch of analysts told me the system was likely to cost when I asked them earlier this year. They predicted $400, but a few said it could likely go higher depending on various economic and technological factors.

But even more interesting is Mario Kart Tour. It's $80. That makes it the most expensive we've ever seen a AAA game cost without belonging to some sort of Deluxe Edition, and it's certainly the highest Nintendo's ever gone. You can buy it in a bundle with the system to get $30 taken off the game price, but the $80 price tag has a lot of Nintendo fans concerned at the rapidly rising prices of games and what this may mean for the future. Didn't we just see games start to go from $60 to $70 a few years ago? That hurt bad enough without bumping it up even higher so soon after.

So what's happening here? Why are the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World priced the way they are? Will we see more game price hikes in the future? As usual, I asked expert analysts to explain it to me. Here's what they said.

Even though most of the analysts I spoke to today were the same folks who predicted a $400 price point when we chatted in January, no one seemed surprised at the $50 extra on the end of the announcement today. Collectively, the six I spoke to offered various reasons for the higher-than-expected price, largely agreeing on the fairly simple confluence of multiple factors: tariffs, manufacturing costs, and competition.

Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern professor and author of SuperJoost Playlist, calls the $449.99 pricing a "strategic balancing act" on Nintendo's part that reflects a mixture of increased manufacturing costs as well as ongoing uncertainty as to whether or not, and if so, what, tariffs the Trump administration in the United States is going to levy on electronics. "Nintendo appears to be building in a buffer against these potential trade barriers while ensuring they maintain their traditional positive margin on hardware."

Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis wasn't surprised by the $450 price, and said it made sense given the Switch OLED's $350 price tag. But he also shared an interesting speculation in his response related to van Dreunen's point about tariffs, relating to why Nintendo didn't announce the price in the Nintendo Direct itself today. "My view is that they probably had a range of pricing for the US market in play up until the last minute due to the uncertainty on import tariffs."

Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games, threw in another factor: Sony. "Nintendo probably factored in possible tariffs, the current inflationary climate in the world and the US$700 Sony dared to charge for the PlayStation 5 Pro last year."

James McWhirter, analyst at Omdia, also mentioned the PS5 Pro as well as the Xbox Series X, both of which he pointed out sold better than their cheaper alternatives (the Xbox Series X surpassed the Series S recently in the U.S.). But he also pointed out an interesting discrepancy in how the Switch 2 is being sold in Japan versus the United States. In Japan, it's releasing a Japanese-language system for 49,980 yen ($333.22), while its multi-language system runs 69,980 yen ($466.56). Why? McWhirter has a fascinating explanation as to the existance of this region-locked system, its pricing, and the discrepancy between it and the pricing of the system in the U.S.:

Okay, that covers the console itself, so why has Nintendo hiked the price of Mario Kart World into the stratosphere at $80? When I asked the analysts I spoke to, I assumed it was related to tariff concerns. Perhaps Nintendo was worried about potential tariffs but also didn't want to raise the price of the console too high, so a more expensive flagship game was their solution to offset costs?

Partially. The experts largely concluded that tariffs may have played a role, with Mat Piscatella, analyst at Circana, suggesting that the higher game pricing was a bit of future-proofing on Nintendo's part. "While pricing for a product can always be lowered over time, it's extremely difficult and painful to raise pricing on a product once it has been announced or released. This is purely my own speculation, but this pricing is most easily explained by trying to be conservative given the current chaotic market conditions."

But the experts also told me there was more to it than that. McWhirter told me that this was Nintendo taking advantage of a critical moment of change in the games industry to test the waters on what the market will tolerate as far as game pricing goes. And it's using its most successful game series ever on that trial run, because Nintendo knows if any game can succeed at that price, it's Mario Kart. If it doesn't work out, it can always drop the price, either directly or indirectly through methods like Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions.

Van Dreunen said something similar, adding, "The timing aligns with the broader industry's gradual price increases for premium content, as we've seen with other publishers moving to $70 base games. Nintendo may be leapfrogging this intermediate step, calculating that the massive built-in audience for Mario Kart will tolerate a higher price point for what appears to be a significantly expanded experience compared to previous entries."

McWhirter also pointed out that not only could this higher cost for Mario Kart World be mitigating things like tariffs or manufacturing costs, it also could be helping balance out other, invisible costs. There's those pesky manfacturing costs, for one, with McWhirter noting that the 3D NAND flash memory from supplier Macronix experts suspect Nintendo is using in Switch 2 game cards is pricey. But there's also the cost of migrating so many first-party titles to Nintendo Switch 2, and the slow build the console will see in its first three years when its blockbuster exclusives are reaching a much smaller audience than was available on the Nintendo Switch.

Other experts brought up other factors. Harding-Rolls made a compelling point about Nintendo otherwise not aggressively pursuing in-game monetization, and needing to account for inflation somehow. And he added: "Nintendo has a bit of a history of pricing games higher than other platforms when coming to the market later than other platforms - in this case PS5 and Xbox Series. I remember back in the day N64 titles being more than PS1 titles for example. Some of that is related to cost of goods, but Nintendo also likes to follow its own approach and price based on its own appreciation of value."

Rhys Elliott, games analyst at Alinea Analytics, said that the discrepancy in physical and digital pricing is a clear move from Nintendo to push consumers toward digital games, especially when paired with the Virtual Game Card announced last week.

"PlayStation and Xbox have already pushed their platforms to become digital-first, driven by strategies like multi-game subscriptions, digital-only consoles, free-to-play’s rise, and platform holders pushing consumers to digital versions via perks (like extra cosmetics and the ability to pre-load a game so it’s instantly ready to play at launch)," he said.

"So PlayStation and especially Xbox are very digital-first. But Nintendo is different, more 50-50. In the last nine months of 2024, 51% of Switch software sales were digital. The number was even lower in the holiday period (43.4% digital for calendar Q4), as always. For consumers, a unique value proposition of physical games is the preowned and rental markets. But Nintendo’s reliance on physical impacts its bottom line, hence the nudging. Nintendo does not gain revenues from physical renting and resales. After all, a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe could be sold on the reseller market 100 times or rented 100 times, but Nintendo would only capture revenues from that first sale. A digital-only market means more revenue and price control for Nintendo."

Finally, I asked this question of Toto, who referred to the jump from $60 games to an $80 Mario Kart World as "quite bold." His explanation was short and sweet:

"Tariffs could play a role, but I think it is much simpler: Nintendo is charging this price because they feel they can and that people will pay."

Everyone I spoke to agreed that even though the Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World pricing is a bit of a shock, it's not going to affect sales of the console. At least... not at first.

"Based on what we're seeing across the market, sales to higher-income or more affluent households likely won't be impacted by this pricing," Piscatella told me. "And, of course, we have the price insensitive super enthusiasts that will do and pay whatever it takes to acquire the Switch 2 at launch. Therefore, because of the limited quantities that will be available during the launch year, I do not anticipate this pricing to hinder year one sales volumes.

"The true test will come in year two, as supply is likely to become more readily available, and the addressable market will be forced to widen. So, we'll have to see what happens over the next 9-12 months."

McWhirter's response was similar, saying that Omdia's current forecast has the Nintendo Switch 2 being outpaced in sales by the original Switch by 6 million units by the end of 2028.

"Even without considering potential tariff-related instability on hardware pricing, Omdia’s console forecast indicates that the list price of console hardware is no longer declining at the same rate it once did, even after adjusting for inflation (see figure, above)," he said.

"After four calendar years on the market, the list price of a PlayStation 5 had only fallen by 12%, compared with 21% for PlayStation 4. This could present a challenge for Nintendo if it hopes to hit a competitive $199.99 entry price point with a Lite-style revision at the same point of its cycle (2027)."

Van Dreunen largely agreed as well, adding that the rising prices of other consumer electronics will likely serve to make this transition less jarring for consumers than it would be otherwise. "With the PlayStation 5 Pro at $700 and premium gaming handhelds in the $549+ range, Nintendo's pricing looks relatively reasonable by comparison," he said. Van Dreunen projected 12 - 15 million Nintendo Switch 2 units sold within the first 12 months on the market, citing backward compatibility as a significant factor that would drive adoption.

Toto had a slightly different take. While he feels the hardware price will be acceptable for most consumers, games rising to $70 or $80 is a "much, much harder sell." Especially for a chunk of Nintendo's target audience.

"In the first year, these prices will not matter that much because there is an audience of people buying everything Nintendo offers, no matter what," he said. "What I am a bit worried about is if Nintendo will again be able to reach the mainstream audience at scale later, i.e. families that might have much tighter budgets for entertainment in today's economy. Nintendo is clearly betting on people accepting higher prices as a new normal by then."

Toto's point is likely the one that will resonate the most, at least at the moment. Despite the highs of today's Nintendo Direct, one of the primary audience responses we've seen coming out of it has been concerns about how expensive it all is. Tariffs, manufacturing costs, market shifts, economics, whatever you want to call it, none of the explanations make the increasing costs of games and systems feel better on the wallet.

Let's just hope no other publishers get any bright ideas about $100 games next.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is finally here and as previously reported the Switch 2 will be largely backwards compatible with Switch 1 games. However, there appears to be a concerted effort from Nintendo to introduce specially enhanced versions of Switch 1 games to the Switch 2. And these seem to go beyond just a graphical boost and framerate bump.

As Nintendo breaks down, there will be primarily three types of games playable on the Switch 2. Native Switch 2 games that are developed for the system and cannot be played on the original Switch. Compatible Switch 1 games whose cartridges can slot right into the Switch 2 and be played natively on the console. And Switch 2 Edition games which are Switch 1 games that will receive new features and performance enhancements when played on Switch 2.

This doesn’t include classic games that are available through Nintendo Switch Online which includes a library of games from the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and now GameCube.

The main takeaway from the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct is that Nintendo appears to be trying to throw in a little extra for anyone playing a Switch 2 Edition of a Switch 1 game.

For example, Super Mario Party Jamboree was a Switch game and the Switch 2 Edition will come with a new suite of content called Jamboree TV that will take advantage of the Joy-Con 2 mouse controls, Switch 2 microphone, and the Switch 2 USB-C camera that will be sold separately.

Along with upgraded resolution up to 1440p in TV mode and better frame rate, there will be new minigames and online functions as well.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which will be a cross-gen game, will support mouse controls with Joy-Con 2, and multiple display modes like Quality Mode which runs at 60fps in 4K when docked, or 1080p at 60fps on handheld; or Performance Mode which runs a 120fps in 1080p when docked, or 120fps in 720p in handheld mode. All modes will support HDR.

Other Switch 2 Edition titles will get new story content like Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s Star-Crossed World add-on, while The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will gain additional support for the Zelda Notes service in the Nintendo Switch App that will give you guides and game help.

Some games, like Pokemon Legends: Z-A will only feature performance and resolution bumps as part of the Switch 2 Edition label.

The Switch 2 is set to be released on June 5, 2025 and that’s around when the first batch of Switch 2 Edition games will arrive.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will get Switch 2 Editions on the day of the console’s launch on June 5, 2025.

Switch 2 Editions for Super Mario Party Jamboree + Jamboree TV will arrive a little later on July 24, 2025. Same for Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s update which will arrive on August 28, 2025.

Neither Metroid Prime 4: Beyond of Pokemon Legends: Z-A have release dates yet so both Switch 2 Editions are scheduled for sometime in 2025.

That depends. If you don’t own the Switch 1 version of the game, then you can purchase the Switch 2 Edition at retail, which will be distinct thanks to the new red-colored physical game case. The digital versions will also feature a prominent Switch 2 logo so you know you’re buying the right edition for your Switch 2.

If you own the game on Switch 1 and want the upgrades that will be added in the Switch 2 Edition you will need to purchase an upgrade pack from Nintendo. The upgrade packs will be available at select retailers, the official My Nintendo Store, and Nintendo eShop. However, Nintendo has not revealed how much an upgrade pack will cost just yet.

Some upgrade packs, like the upgrade to the Switch 2 Edition of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will be included in a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership. This is the same membership that gives Switch owners access to online features and the classic library.

So there you have it, that’s everything you need to know about the Switch 2 Editions of a game. We’ve detailed previously how Nintendo is making the jump to the Switch 2 fairly seamless thanks to its backward compatibility stance, and it looks like Nintendo is looking to bolster its launch library with improved versions of Switch classics.

For more on Nintendo Switch 2 check out all the news announced during the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct as well as how much it costs, and when pre-orders go up.

Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor.