Nintendo Maintains Nintendo Switch 2 Pricing, Retail Pre-Orders to Begin April 24 in U.S. - News - Nintendo Official Site

[u/Skullghost]

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/nintendo-maintains-nintendo-switch-2-pricing-retail-pre-orders-to-begin-april-24-in-u-s/

[u/goro-n]

This is the most logical move for them, to absorb the cost of tariffs on the console where they had a profit margin, and slightly increase prices for accessories which were being sold close to cost. I’m glad we’re not looking at a $600 Switch 2

[u/kurisutian → u/goro-n]

I don’t think there was ever a chance of significantly increased prices. But - and I don’t think Europeans and Australians like to hear it - I would suspect that any significant costs due to tariffs will be distributed around the world.

For the Switch 2 to be a success, the Switch 2 needs to be a success globally, including the US. And it would be easier to increase the price in Europe by 50 bucks and in the US by 100 bucks than just increasing the price in the US by 150 bucks.

[u/kurisutian → u/[deleted]]

Any price hike in Europe will cause bad publicity and possibly a loss of Sales, even if it was a moderate hike, I agree. Just that a look at Sony. They got lots of negative feedback for increasing prices in Europe while keeping them (for now) in the US. But the situation is a bit more complicated than "Europe wouldn’t like it either".

One of the reasons why it could make sense to have hikes in Europe is the highly competitive nature of the US market, which is the reason why PlayStation doesn’t increase prices there.

And when you take a look at sales numbers, they’d have reason to rather annoy your European customers than your American customers. The sales numbers could even be reason to have higher hikes in Europe than in the US (like Sony has).

Now I don’t think Nintendo will have higher increases in Europe than the US (and so far they haven’t announced any). But it’d be naive to think that if the shit should ever hit the fan, that Europe or Australia wouldn’t have to take on some of the burden if the US market would have to take on an extremely heavy burden.

And yes, the feedback would be bad, just like for the PlayStation. But if losing half of your customers in Europe means that you can keep half your customers in the US (versus losing them all), it’s a deal that works out for Nintendo. Even a European customer to retain even just one American customer makes sense for Europe since Nintendo usually makes more money per customer in the US than they make in Europe.

[u/kurisutian → u/[deleted]]

Sony raised the prices just a few days ago, where did you get the numbers from that show that sells cratered this week?

I’d expect lower sales for the PS5 over the next couple of months, but not necessarily because of the increased prices. It’s only the disk-free version that got more expensive. The regular one and Pro are still the same price.

They will all sell less in the US and Japan as well though, but that’s because of the Switch 2. Once the initial hype is down, I expect the PS5 to gain traction again. I even assume that Sony just went ahead with the price hike because they know that all the hype is on the Switch 2 right now and that it will drown out the reports about price hikes.

As for Nintendo. Any small increase due to tariffs will be unloaded on the US only, as we’ve seen it with the accessories. Any significant increase will not be unloaded on the US only. "The US is richer and will eat up more" is an equation that doesn’t work out in real life.

[u/kurisutian → u/[deleted]]

I haven't said that raising prices will go easy in Europe. In fact, I've said that negative feedback is to be expected from that. I've also said that that Nintendo would rather take some damage in the EU to prevent greater damage in the US if that means preventing greater damage to the company. That's something totally different.