2005’s GameCube Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is now on Switch Online — will this make physical copies cheaper?

Nintendo has added the 2005 Fire Emblem GameCube entry ‘Path of Radiance’ to their online service today, making the game wildly available to a new audience for the first time in roughly 20 years.

Now, I’ve not played it, but it’s one of those GameCube titles that has become increasingly rare over the years, now fetching silly prices online as a result — similar to other rare GameCube releases like Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Doshin the Giant and Gotcha Force.

I’ve just been on CeX’s website (a pre-owned game seller here in the UK) to check what the current asking price is today (January 9, 2025) for a copy of the GameCube tactical RPG. At a minimum you are looking at a spend of £130 for a copy of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance — that’s around $175.

I also took a peek over on eBay for recently sold copies of the game, with prices ranging from a low of £65 ($87) to highs of around £340 ($455) depending on condition.

Why am I sharing this? Well, just out of curiosity really to see if the availability of the game on the Nintendo Switch Online service will impact the inflated asking price of the physical game in reseller markets. I’ll check in on this in a few months I guess to see if the going rate has come down now that more people have an easier way to play this latest addition to the growing GameCube Switch 2 lineup. Maybe it will make no difference, but I figured it would be interesting to check, and me posting this is as good a reminder as any to do so! 😅

Will you be playing this on your Switch 2?