Nintendo announced Wednesday morning that the Nintendo Switch 2 will release June 5 — over 8 years since the original Switch.
The company promised the brand-new “Mario Kart World”, the first new entry in the popular racing series in 11 years, at the system’s launch. Other brand-new Nintendo exclusives like “Donkey Kong Bananza”, “Kirby Air Riders” and “Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment” were also unveiled. In addition, the company announced paid upgrades to over a dozen Switch games and new hardware features such as 4K resolution, expanded internal storage and voice-chat functionality.
But there’s a catch: the price of Nintendo’s newest product is $449.99 in the U.S. — $150 higher than its predecessor.
There’s also a bundle with a digital copy of “Mario Kart World” included that costs $499.99 — the same price as a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, Nintendo’s direct competitors. The Switch 2′s $449.99 price tag is the highest ever for a Nintendo console — and, when adjusted for inflation, is still Nintendo’s most expensive in decades.
As for why this price increased, Larry Vincent, a professor of the practice of marketing at USC Marshall, had a few theories.
“The most obvious in this case would probably be the [Trump administration] tariffs, which would add quite a bit of import duties onto material coming from Asia,” Vincent said.
“The cost of the raw materials, the cost of the technology may have changed, but sometimes companies also choose to raise prices for a variety of reasons.”
One reason could be to recruit the kind of consumer Nintendo wants to target with the Switch 2, both in terms of the hardware and in forthcoming games.
“You might see it as a way of choosing better customers. If the original pricing was used to penetrate the market and try to gain share, they may find that’s not helping them overall in their competitive strategy… making only the best customers buy their equipment as opposed to others,” Vincent said.
Dmitri Williams, a professor of communication at USC Annenberg who specializes in technology and gaming, was surprised by the Switch 2′s price, saying it was $50 to $75 higher than he expected.
But his primary concern, from a business perspective, is the “install base,” or the amount of hardware units sold and thus the potential number of consumers who could buy games on that hardware. For example, the original Nintendo Switch has sold just over 150 million units — or an install base of 150 million.
“So if you have an install base of 10 million, and your competitor has an install base of 20 million, it’s going to be really hard for you to make as much money and compete with them,” Williams said.
“Nintendo is going to have a relatively small install base as a result of having a higher price, and that will make it harder for them to compete because they won’t be able to sell to as many [consumers].”
Software and accessory prices are also skyrocketing. “Mario Kart World” will cost $80 — a full $10 more than many PS5 and Xbox games and $20 more than the average Switch game. The Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller will cost $80, another $10 increase.
These costs could all contribute to a target demographic that differs from Nintendo’s typical family audience — specifically, more avid and mature players.
“Perhaps this product is geared more for really serious gamers, in which case the price tag acts as a kind of [filter] to make sure that the right types of consumers are using the product,” Vincent said.
It’s a stark shift for the Japanese game company, as the Nintendo Switch was priced at $300, the cheapest mainstream video game console on the market. The broader strategy for Nintendo has shied away from Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation’s focus on continually building more powerful hardware, Williams explained.
“They’ve been playing in a different lane, and so they’re probably not as concerned with being as computationally intensive and able to keep up with the others graphically,” Williams said.
“But they also don’t want to look like a stone-age piece of technology.”
As for what it would take for Williams to buy a Switch 2 himself, though, the answer was a lot more straightforward.
“If my kid wants it,” Williams said.