Seemingly everything but Costco hot dogs has increased in cost recently, and one former Nintendo retail lead believes that a Switch 2 price hike is “inevitable.” Speaking on the Kit & Krysta podcast–a series run by former Nintendo employees–the man known only as “Sean” suggested that Nintendo’s decision to charge less for its downloadable games will help to soften the backlash if and when it decides to increase how much its hardware costs.
“Unfortunately, I think eventually the hardware price is going to have to go up,” Sean said. “I think that there are things that they can and seem to be doing to try and mitigate that, but I also look at this move on on software as–if I’m reading it correctly–a way to make a hardware price increase a little bit more palatable. We’ve seen inflation being a problem for a while now. Tariffs are a more recent nuisance, but they’re not going away anytime soon. The demand that AI is causing for chips is causing memory prices to go up, and within the past couple of weeks, we have issues with oil prices going through the roof.”
Sean added that other factors, like an increase in the price of helium–a vital component in the production of semiconductors and a resource that is becoming increasingly finite–will only exacerbate current challenges. While Nintendo can tackle thinner hardware profit margins with merchandising, Sean added that the company may have no option but to increase Switch 2 hardware prices because of external factors, no matter what steps it takes to avoid doing so.
Several other experts also believe that a Switch 2 price increase is on the way due primarily to the RAMpocalypse, and during the company’s latest earnings briefing, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa didn’t rule out the possibility of this happening. With the discontinuation of the $500 Switch 2 bundle that included Mario Kart World, analysts believe that this was an under-the-radar price increase for the console.
Meanwhile, Sony announced a substantial price increase for its PlayStation hardware last month. The PS5 went up by $100, the PS5 Pro is now $150 more expensive, and the PlayStation Portal price increased by $50.