Death Squared devs confirm that Switch eShop games can no longer be priced below $1.99 (UPDATE)

UPDATE - It seems that the Death Squared devs may have gotten some info wrong. While the dev said that new games cannot be priced below $1.99, there are some games available on the eShop right now that are priced below that. This could be explained with two different findings.

First up, it's possible pricing a game below $2 is still possible, but those titles won't be listed on the Best Sellers page. This would obviously help combat the chart-rushing that we've seen. Second, it's also possible that these deals were locked in awhile back. The Death Squared dev actually had this happen to them, as they planned a deal in August to make their game 99 cents, and that deal ended just over a week ago. In other words, we could be seeing the last of these less than $2 deals right now, and in a couple weeks, those offers will be over.

We've reached out to Nintendo for clarification. You can find our original story below.

A few weeks back, we heard some speculation about a big change on the Switch eShop. Long story short, inside sources claimed that Nintendo had reformed some of their rules, and Switch games could no longer be put on sale for a penny or other insanely low prices. Nintendo was supposedly taking this step to stop devs from gaming the eShop to artificially boost their games up on the popular charts for better visibility.

While Nintendo hasn't come out to say that they've employed this tactic, another developer has at least confirmed part of the story. Over in a Reddit thread, Death Squared devs Studio SMG shared a post that validated earlier speculation. In the comment, a dev from the studio said that, "new rules on the eShop mean no game can be below $1.99." While we don't get confirmation on why Nintendo made this move, the earlier insider info does match up nicely with this change.

Obviously, the one exception to this rule is free games. Titles like Fortnite and Rocket League are completely free and will remain that way. New titles going forward can be free as well. As for traditional games, the lowest price you're ever going to see from here on out is $1.99.