By now, you’re more than likely aware of the news that Nintendo has delayed pre-orders of the Switch 2 in the United States due to tariffs. Nintendo had been keeping an eye out on the situation for months now, but it seems that the severity of the tariffs were more than they anticipated. Not surprisingly, analysts are now offering their reactions to the news and wondering what Nintendo will do going forward.
Unfortunately, if you were already upset about the price of the console before the pre-orders were delayed, then the analysts that spoke to IGN today aren’t offering much hope. They are very divided on what, exactly, Nintendo will do. There are some analysts, including Kantan Games CEO Dr. Serkan Toto and Circana senior analyst Mat Piscatella, that feel that Nintendo will increase the price. Meanwhile, there’s another group of analysts, including NYU Stern professor Joost van Dreunen and Ampere Analysis games researcher Piers Harding-Rolls, that feel that Nintendo will try not to raise the Switch 2 price further to avoid more consumer backlash.
The panel was in agreement, however, that the situation is very chaotic and uncertain and they don’t know for sure what will happen. Joost van Dreunen said that “the unpredictable nature of these tariff decisions—exemplified by the recent situation in Vietnam—injects a significant amount of uncertainty into the market”. Alinea Analytics games analyst Rhys Elliott agreed, saying that “we are living in, there’s no other word for it, unhinged times driven by an unhinged man (and other forces)”.
You can thank Nvidia and their price gouging and the increase cost of chip manufacturing. Tariffs might have negligible effects on cost.
Yes but despite the era we are currently living right now and the cost of the CPU chip and rams in the hardware, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but some things are getting most expensive as I thought from the beginning this year.
I’m sorry, you’re saying a 24%-34% increase in cost for a finished good is going to have negligible impact on the retail price?
I recognize this type of denialism, and it starts with the color orange.
So I’m assuming the price for the system will remain unchanged and Nintendo will stick by the amount. That’s unfortunate news I’m hearing now.
What do you prefer? The price increasing or staying the same?
People need to wake up to the harsh reality. Gaming (which was always an expensive hobby) has become more expensive these last years. Even ignoring taxes and such. We’ve arrived at precisely the point which was predicted as far as 2005-2008 when power started to dictate the gaming industry and the cycle began:
-More power requires more potent hardware, making it more expensive.
-Games must take advantage of the increased power, taking longer to develop and release, demanding more resources and, surprise, becoming more expensive.
-Third party games, which were supposed to fill the gap between first time releases, also started to get into the power play, taking longer to develop, release, demanding more resources and becoming exclusive.
-Despite taking longer to develop and release, games are barely tested and some of them end up launching in a sorry state, demanding day one patches. Also companies started to go whole hog on DLC in an attempt to squeeze more money.
Small wonder Nintendo was the very last one to get into the power play. They knew this was going to happen (they even stated they were not ready at the time precisely because of these reasons). But “gamers” not only thought these conditions were acceptable, but they demand more power. Now they’re reaping what they sow. NS2 and PS5 Pro at $799 is just the tip of the iceberg.
Price dropping.
Plus, Switch 2 is not 800$. Your talking about PS5 price.
It’s $699 in Canada for the bundle which comes to $804 with taxes.
Oh in Canada only? Gotcha.
So thank you 1000!!! That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say here since yesterday!
A lot of people wanted a more powerful Switch since 2020 or 2021, PS5 slim went up to 449 from 399, do you it was going to be cheap specialy with the price of todays chips, as you said now people are reaping what they sow.
And prices literally haven’t gone up on games since the 80s. That bubble was going to burst eventually and in this economy it was clearly going to be soon.
Unhinged man 😂😂😂
Honestly I don’t understand what the whole hubbub about the $450 price tag was. $450 for a system that can run 4k, has 120fps, and is portable is a decent price. $80 for a game, however, is not.
Crazy don’t you think?
People initially thought the Switch 2 was going to be priced at $400, so obviously people were upset. However, if you think back to Steam Deck’s pricing, they are pretty much the same. Steam Deck without the dock is $400, but with the dock, it’s $470. There is no bundle for the Steam Deck as far as I know where it arrives with both the system and the dock, so it looks like Nintendo is the cheaper one here.
Also, I think NVidia really pulled through with this one to get at that price point. The Nintendo and NVidia partnership really made something special.
Final Fantasy 7 (original) would be over $120 today, inflation finally hit, that’s the reality. 40 years of unchanged prices was going to burst at some point.
While the asking price of $450 for Switch 2 is higher than I thought it would be, I don’t think it’s unreasonable, considering the amount of tech packed into the thing.
Mario Kart being $80+, however… And who’s to say it’s going to just be a “special case” like Tears of the Kingdom being Nintendo’s sole $70 game on Switch 1? It could be a first step as opposed to a one-time-occurrence.
Tears of the kingdom was their first step, Mario kart is a whole run towards us with a machine gun in their hands. Nintendo is clearly being very greedy about it.
But I do agree the switch 2 price isn’t that awful, but if you look at that Japanese region locked version, you can tell that things could be way better.
I figured they accounted for possible tarrifs and future rising costs with the price tag they already announced.
“DUUUUDE PLEASE STOP GETTING MAD AT THE ORANGE MAN! TARIFFS DIDNT AFFECT THE PRICE OF THE SWITCH 2’’
sure buddy.
Meanwhile Japan pays 330 dollars for their console and surprise surprise it’s region locked, I wonder why.
If Nintendo don’t increase the price on the Switch then it amounts to a huge discount for Americans as it means Nintendo will be taking the hit on all of the tariffs slashing their profit margin. It’s a discount that ultimately the rest of the world will be paying for. I think if you want to do tariffs that’s fine but you should live and die by that decision, and not be subsidised or treated as special.
There is actually some small chance in my opinion that Trump specifically does a deal with Nintendo to remove tariffs on Switch 2’s, just because I don’t think Trump will like the optics of a very clear increase in price you can point to due to his tariffs.
DROP THE PRICE