Join The Community
As the original Nintendo Switch goes up in price, a former Nintendo of America marketing manager reckons it could actually really benefit the Switch 2.
The Switch 2 reveal was almost immediately followed by massive tariff increases on countries where Nintendo manufactures the consoles (like China and Vietnam), resulting in pre-orders being delayed in the United States. But after fears that the already-expensive Switch 2 would be more expensive for US customers, Nintendo kept it the same, with accessories getting hit instead.
Ellis states "a new customer today buying a Nintendo Switch 2 is a lot more valuable than a new customer buying an old Nintendo Switch," as that gets a player into their new ecosystem going forward, in what will likely be close to 10-years of Switch 2. Now that the original console is getting closer in price to the new Switch 2, the type of person who waits until the end of a console's lifetime to grab one may think it's worth just dropping the extra $50 to get the new console that's backwards compatible.
He adds that Nintendo has "found a way to stay winning, no matter how much it stinks for all of us, the regular people, in the end."
