flipping the pricing switch
“Changes in market conditions” lead to $50 price bump on Sept. 1.
You might want to tone down the outward excitement given today's pricing announcement, Mario... Credit: Kyle Orland
These now-routine price increases are a marked change from a decades-long period where game consoles routinely and quickly dropped in price in the years after their launch. Even before recent component shortages, though, a combination of higher-than-normal inflation, the slowing of Moore’s Law, tariff-related market shocks, and spiking gas prices have made the once-reliable console price drop a fading market memory.
In updated financial forecasts also released today, Nintendo cited “the impact of these price revisions” in projecting sales of 16.5 million Switch 2 units in the current fiscal year (ending March 2027). That’s down from 19.86 million sales in the console’s first fiscal year, but it still “represents a solid level of adoption for Nintendo Switch 2 in its second year after launch,” the company wrote.
Outside of the US, Nintendo announced the following new hardware prices for other markets:
- Canada: $679.99 (from $629.99)
- Europe: €499.99 (from €469.99)
- Japan: ¥59,980 (from ¥49,980 – effective May 25)
Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.
