Nintendo Won't Raise Switch Prices, Despite Growing Costs

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has said Nintendo will not raise the price of the Nintendo Switch. In any other timeline, that wouldn't be surprising at all. Console prices tend to come down over time--not increase--but due to supply chain issues and other factors, manufacturing costs are actually going up these days for Nintendo. Nintendo will not pass these increased costs along to the consumer and charge more, however.

Speaking to Nikkei (via NME), Furukawa said Nintendo wants to avoid "pricing people out," and will not raise the selling price of the Switch.

Furukawa said raising the MSRP of the Switch is not something Nintendo is considering "at this point." Whether or not that changes in the future remains to be seen.

"Our competition is the variety of entertainment in the world, and we always think about pricing in terms of the value of the fun we offer," Furukawa said.

The executive went on to say that the Switch OLED model will remain "less profitable" than the standard version of the Switch. He added that costs pertaining to shipping by air and sea have "undoubtedly increased."

Other tech and gaming companies are affected by increased costs and supply issues. For its part, Sony was asked if it would raise the price of the PS5 to offset increased production costs, but management declined to comment.

Recently, Nintendo disclosed that Switch sales fell by 23% year-over-year due to chip shortages. Despite the downturn, Furukawa said Nintendo still believes it can reach its goal of 21 million Switch units sold in the fiscal year ending March 2023. Games like Splatoon 3 (September 9) and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet (November 18) may help spur sales, Furukawa said.

"All I can say is that we'll try to keep up sales at the same pace. Having hit software also gives a boost to hardware. We have a lineup of new games that will allow us to take a crack at meeting our sales forecast, including Splatoon [3] coming out in September and Pokemon [Scarlet and Violet] in November," he said.

As of June 30, Nintendo had sold more than 111 million Switch consoles worldwide.