In a new interview on the Kit and Krysta Podcast, a former Nintendo sales lead expressed that he feels it is “inevitable” that Nintendo will need to increase the price of the Switch 2. Talking to a man only introduced as Sean (likely to protect this identity), hosts and former Nintendo employees Kit and Krysta asked about the recent PlayStation 5 price hike and whether Nintendo would follow suit or not. As Sean put it, the answer is an eventual yes.
“Unfortunately I think eventually the hardware price is going to have to go up,” Sean explained. “I think that there’s things that they can and seem to be doing to try and mitigate that, but I also look at this move on software as, if I’m reading it correctly, a way to make a hardware price increase a little bit more palatable.” That’s something I said in an article of my own last week taking a broader look at industry implications of Sony’s price increases.
Continuing, Sean said, “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 you know, within the past couple of weeks, we have issues with oil prices going through the roof. And when oil goes through the roof, that’s not just shipping costs that go up, there’s… you know, we can imagine, to get the games from wherever they’re being manufactured, to the warehouse, to the retailers, to the shelf, that’s going to drive the price up.”
Sean does believe Nintendo will resist increasing the Switch 2 price as long as possible, which would make good business sense. If interest is already waning in the current $450 MSRP, it certainly won’t increase with a higher price. While breaking down how oil prices correlate to increased costs for electronics, Sean does consider that Nintendo may attempt to offset a decline in hardware profits with new merchandise. “So they may be able to put off raising hardware prices for a moment, but I think it’s inevitable that they’re going to go up for the first time,” he concludes.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
