Nintendo announces price increases for Nintendo Switch 2

Nintendo's core audience has always been children, their parents, and casual players, but with some console cycles they expand into other niches, as has (resoundingly) been the case with the Switch; the Switch appealed to virtually anyone interested in playing games on the go, including people who otherwise don't usually buy the newest Nintendo console/games for their polish and/or family-friendliness. For a long time it was by far the most convenient way to play Skyrim or Witcher 3 or what-have-you on buses, planes, at school etc.

The Steam Deck doesn't cut into Nintendo's core audience, but it does draw away people who would have bought the Switch 1/2 for those reasons -- the audience that made the Switch 1 such an overwhelming success. Anecdotally, I've had multiple non-techies bring up the Steam Deck unprompted, usually with an impression of 'the Switch but better' and/or 'more adult-oriented'.

Historically, when the market they created starts to become saturated, Nintendo starts looking to pivot. So the Steam Deck might not kill the Switch 2, but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't kill the Switch 3.

> It's not like most people even know what a Steam Deck is.

Steam basically is PC gaming at this point, which is still a massive market that is almost as big as the entirety of console gaming.

I know there are those out there, but I would be slightly surprised if a PC gamer didn't know what a Steam Deck was in 2026.

As someone who has pretty much every console system and most handhelds, I didn't spring for a Switch 2, and it is for the exact reason the thread parent mentions. I do like Nintendo games, as they are consistently high quality, but they are not usually graphics reliant for fun, and the Switch is good enough still, and I don't love paying $90 USD for a single game when I can buy $5-20 games on Steam and play them across multiple devices.

Breath of the Wild when that came out only reason I would have bought a Switch. But apparently if you own it can run it through QEMU on PC.

I have neither devices right now, only a PC.

Yes, Nintendo is essentially the futuristic version of Disney. And families will continue to pay a premium in exchange for a curated experience that you know will be OK for your child.

The combination of expensive hardware AND expensive games kills the switch 2 for me.

80 Dollar just to play Mario Kart?

Even older switch titles are barely ever on sale.

I never buy games at full price so the economics don't add up for me. I guess it works for the kind of person that buys games on release. If someone has that much money to burn they don't need to care about hardware cost either I guess.

You can run Ship of Harkinian on steamdeck

Twilight Princess soon

Comments like yours are why I come to HN discussions. Thanks for sharing.

There's some overlap. I think it probably has a bigger impact on game attach rate for a certain segment of gamer. I bought a lot less games on Switch upon getting a PC handheld, not because of price (generally I find games are pretty comparable there), but because the PC version is more flexible and I'm pretty sure I can run the PC version ten years down on some PC. Will Nintendo's next console run it? No idea.

>Adults aren’t the target market.

Adults are VERY MUCH the target market: See page 10 of Nintendo's investor relations doc.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2022/221109e.pdf

But also most parents will scoff at the prices and tell them to pick cheaper toys.

I put a watch notification on slickdeals.net for it. As soon as they get restocked on the site they tend to sell out quickly (presumably people really want them).

It's not really. The CPU in the Switch 2 isn't the most amazing and the Steam Deck has 4GB extra RAM (but it's also got a lighter OS), but the GPU is worse on Deck. Switch 2 offers pretty comparable performance in handheld mode, better in docked and devs are more likely to tailor games for Switch 2. FF7 Rebirth looks like trash on Deck, even on my faster 780M handheld it was pretty ugly, I had to hack in FSR3/4 support for it to look remotely decent. Switch 2 by comparison looks better. Star Wars Outlaws is another example.

The switch 2 is definitively more powerful than the steam deck and also supports DLSS.

> 4K@60

Parts of Samus's gun and some parts of the UI are 4k.

I'm a Nintendo fan but this 4k@60 claim from Nintendo is incredibly laughable. The vast majority of the screen is upscaled.

I think there were a bunch of 4k Hatsune Miku games that came out. It turns out that 2D renderings at 4k can be accomplished with very low end hardware.

The game looks good because Nintendo has excellent artists. So I guess it's worth the money. But the technical specs are completely baloney.

It's an odd criticism to begin with. The Switch is a toy, it's not a PC. Apart from a few shitty PC ports, it runs its games just fine, so in what sense is it really "underpowered"? Would Super Mario Bros. Wonder be a better game if the Switch 2 could push twice as many polygons?

The steam deck is 4 year old hardware. The Switch 2 came out last summer. So if they're about on-par performance-wise, doesn't that prove OP's point?

I like this perspective. I was thinking in terms of enjoyment I derived from switch 1 vs steam deck. For me, the Deck has already unlocked way more fun!

Historically last generation hardware is sold at steep discounts compared to original MSRP. The insanity is we live in a world where manufacturing 9 year old hardware has increasing manufacturing and shipping cost, where this was not the case. Another layer of insanity is that Nintendo did the analysis and decided it's going to make sales at this increased price.

Profits must be maintained at all costs

They don't list price changes for the Lite outside of Japan, but I'm sure it's coming too.

The Japanese Switch 2 is going up by 20%. The US model is going up by about 10%.

In Japan, the Lite is going up by over 35%. If we assume a similar pattern (US going up by about half as much as in Japan), then that'd take the $230 Lite to more like $270.

I still like my Switch Lite, but almost $300 after tax for it would be absurd.

I grew up in a time when we got one or two games a year, if we wanted more games, piracy with double deck tapes, or programming our own games, were the only options available.

Thus it is hard to feel the need to be talking about the latest popular game.

You gotta learn how to become a "patient gamer". It only leads to a cheaper, better bug-free experience.

I'm with you, but The Switch2 has so far mostly been dropping remakes of classic games, and games already released years ago on other platforms.

I've played BotW on Switch 1 and the Switch 2 upgraded edition. While some scenes are a bit choppy on Switch 1 it's never in the way of gameplay and even on Switch 1 one of the best video games of the last decade.

Of course Switch 2 is faster and the better console (it should be), but if you're focussing on raw performance you're in the wrong crowd.

Even on PS5 you have load times and performance tradeoffs. There will be a time when we're wondering how we put up with the 'impossibly slow' current generation of consoles like we're doing with the 8-bits machines now.

For some people the speed is worth the money, for others it isn't

I started gaming with Nintendo's Game&Watch handhelds, Timex 2068, PC MS-DOS 3.3, Amiga, and so on, so I do understand something about upgrading hardware for speed, or deal with what one has at home.

At some point they will upgrade hardware and improve battery life. That’s the biggest argument for waiting. All first Gen Nintendo handhelds had terrible battery life

He may have just fumbled into an accuracy, but the nuance here is that what you're saying is mostly true for domestically produced things, which is why the other country you're mostly referring to is China - they have domestic production facilities for just about everything.

Something like the Switch is going to rely heavily on imported parts, and so when your currency plummets relative to others, that forces you to increase prices just to stay in the black. And yeah in looking it up, then yen has dropped about 50% against the yuan just over the past 5 years. Seems like Japan didn't learn much from the US about picking 'print money' as your economic policy. It doesn't last long when you're an economic hegemon able to export your inflation, but it's a far worse idea when you're a lesser economic power.

First, Japan doesn't make the Switch in Japan. They are made in Vietnam and China. So having a weak local currency isn't super helpful.

Second, the largest price increase is for the local Japanese market (and they are increasing the already-underpriced special 'Japan-only' model that they won't allow to be sold in other markets).

This is a large price rise in domestic (Japanese) markets, with a small rise in other countries. This is impacting Japanese consumers the most.

Nintendo is a very Japanese-centric, proud company. For those not aware, Nintendo has been avoiding repricing domestically until now by selling a "Japanese-only Switch" locked to Japan in order to prevent foreign arbitrage. But the currency pressure is too strong.

The thing is dependent on imported RAM. The flip side of this.. have you seen SK Hynix stock price lately?

You’ll notice they raised prices in Japan by A Lot, but the US price is only up $50.

It totally depends on if you need to import things to transform them or if you source mostly locally in your supply chain.

Yeah, the comment talking about currency exchange rates is missing the hardware crisis. Nintendo stock prices dropped 45% over the past year because of the hardware shortages and the inevitability of having to raise prices to account for that. I think the difference in currencies is a minor factor. Last July, Nintendo was selling for about $24 a share, and now it's down to about $12.

https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-under-pressure-to-rais...

Hardware is just one aspect of sales though. I assume they have much higher margin on software, especially rereleases of existing games on whatever the next platform is.

That's very simplistic. They also earn money on sales, both first-party and third-party games, so they need a large audience.

Hang on, halving your sales means doubling your price to stay even (ignoring your own cost), right?

I have a bridge to sell you …

DRAM prices increase everywhere, so it should affect the worldwide market in the same way. But Nintendo is raising prices mostly in Japan.

Japan's local currency devaluation is more about US vs Japan differences in central bank policy and interest rates (and a million other issues) and is mostly separate from DRAM prices.

Check out the US dollar index on a 5-year view: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/quote/DX-Y.NYB/

Inflation is just one factor and is not limited to one country. This shows the US dollar vs other currencies.

We didn’t love DK or Mario kart when we had my friends Switch 2 one weekend so it still hasn’t felt worth it yet.

If someone has a switch, gifting a steam deck isn't an upgrade necessarily. You're giving them a platform that can't play most of the games they probably love. Not because of specs of course. A switch 2 is actually an upgrade. Almost all of their current games will run better and they'll be able to play more demanding switch 2 only games as they continue to trickle out.

Switch is my favorite cuz we like to play party games with friends like Mario kart. We have thought a lot about the Steam Deck though cuz we have steam games. I would prefer a steam deck over switch 2 if I had to pick one right now cuz the switch is great still.

I bought a switch 2 over a steam deck. I have over a thousand steam games. A few reasons:

Nintendo makes fun games that I want to play. I want to play the new Metroid, the new Pokémon games, Kirby DLC, etc. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I grew up with the original Metroid, and that series sticks with me.

The switch 1 gets a ton of use in my house. Switch 1 games perform so much better on the 2.

The pro controller for the switch 2 is incredible.

Switch 2 is cheaper, significantly cheaper if you play docked. Our family uses it to play docked a lot.

The switch 2 library is large enough that you can play a lot of the same titles you can on the deck. Or at least enough games you'll never run out of fun options. You don't need to have the biggest library to be fun.

I have a powerful PC in my house for when I want to play shooters and 4x games. The switch 2 library gets way more exercise.

Nintendo games are only on the switch. If that's what you want to play, then the Steam deck is a non-starter.

(But if you like the games on Steam, then the Steam deck makes a lot of sense.)

They showed some good will towards protecting the local market against blatant currency manipulation but it is an important market for them and at this point it doesn't look like the JCB is going to react. They just "intervened" the Gopher back to what it was a few weeks ago.

I remember reading that the screen is worse than v1, is that still true ?

Entertainment companies have unlocked the infinite money glitch with remakes; not only companies but also people are afraid of trying something new, so why not profit from nostalgia.

I called it years ago, but I didn’t expect how people would love to play the same story and watch the same movie over and over again. Incidentally they will be also easier to AI generate, as part of their existing data set. It truly is the end game for our stale and uninspired culture.

I missed Breath of the Wild, I’ll play it on the Switch 4 remake in a couple of years.

/rant

How many times are they gonna remake starfox 64 (which is basically a remake of the first starfox with bits from the then unreleased 2)

Ram prices went up, normally they go down.

NEC temporarily raised the price of the TurboExpress due to low screen yields in 1991. That is the only price increase I was able to find.

And add the cost of transit to france

You are then obliged to pay UK VAT / import tax when you return

I remember when Nintendo bundled the best Mario game with their consoles, not the worst.

You can't play Pokopia, DK Bonanza or Mario Kart World on PC. Even with a 5090. You also can't play Cyberpunk 2077 on the plane or train with a 2nd hand desktop unlike the Switch 2.

....and how are you going to carry that gaming PC onto a plane?

Like, it's a portable console, it's not a competition for a desktop PC in any way.

Vacations aren't about net profitability. You can visit Japan and enjoy reasonable prices when you're there. Or you can go to many other popular destinations and be repeatedly insulted by $600 hotel rooms, $30 burgers, and $15 bottled beers.

Why would they have to offset the cost? They are just saying, being in Japan is a cheaper experience right now than ever before (not sure if it is true). The cost to get there is their only impediment. They still want to go and eat food and see experiences they cannot get at home.

Also, if the trip is of sufficient length, you can totally offset the cost.

When I lived in NYC, I used to travel to the UK a few times a year, and the flights between NYC and London were around $500 round trip. The cost of eating in the UK was typically 1/2 that of NYC, plus cool castles and history.

I’m assuming GP would like to visit Japan anyway.

About a month for me

your local library rents Nintendo Switch games???

Just because something is heavily in demand doesn't mean it's not fraudulent.

What's high in demand is supply infrastructure, i.e. GPUs and RAM, purchased with borrowed money. Actual end-user customer demand is an entirely separate question. Nobody is selling AI services at anywhere near what it costs to supply. Nintendo doesn't run on VC money so it can't subsidize its products the way Anthropic and co. can.