Hail Mario 3: Revenge of the Stock

November 08, 2019

Nintendo has announced its Black Friday deals, and chief among them is a $299.99 Switch console bundle that includes a free download code for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This deal will start on Thursday, November 28th, and will be available at several retailers. So far, we’ve seen it confirmed in Target’s Black Friday ad, but expect it to pop up at the other major players, like Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, and more.

Getting a free game with the Switch is great, especially one that’s as good as Nintendo’s popular kart racer, but there’s some fine print with this deal that you may, or may not, care about. You’ll only get the free game with the HAC-001 version of the console, the original launch model that has been superseded by a new version with vastly superior battery life (a range from 4.5 to nine hours versus the original’s 2.5- to 6.5-hour claim, depending on the game).

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This deal might read as a way for Nintendo to clear out its remaining stock of launch units without cutting the price, but thankfully, the older version is no less capable, and crucially, no less fun to play on.

I’m willing to bet Faulkner is correct here.

I’ve written about Nintendo’s use of Mario Kart 8 as a unit mover. For the Wii U, it was used as a final Hail Mary to reinvigorate Wii U sales with not only the game, but a very early review embargo and a free additional game. For the Switch, it was a the first widely recognized party game to offer local multiplayer support, allowing early Switch adopters to showcase the console’s unique modes of play ahead of the holidays, namely table-top mode — the mode that allows two local players to play anywhere, each leveraging a single Joy-Con as a controller and prop up the Switch as the screen.

Here we are on the other end of the spectrum. With the wild popularity of the Switch and a relatively new SKU that boasts better battery life, what better way to exhaust stock of the original SKU than to throw in arguably the most polished, popular, and accessible game in Nintendo’s library for free.