Despite global economic turmoil, the Switch 2 price has remained the same since its launch last June, but one of the company's former sales leads predicts it'll increase eventually.
The former Nintendo employee, who identifies himself only by his first name, Sean, tells the Kit & Krysta podcast - itself hosted by ex-Nintendo marketing leads - that a Switch 2 price hike is "inevitable."
There are a multitude of fierce economic headwinds making gaming hardware more expensive to make and thus sell, resulting in numerous and substantial price increases across Xbox and PlayStation's console lineups. The most recent is a global increase on all PS5 consoles taking effect April 2, at which point a PS5 Pro will cost an eye-watering $900.
Nintendo so far has stayed resilient on its Switch 2 pricing, but it can only hold out for so long, says Sean.
"Unfortunately, I think eventually the hardware price is going to have to go up," he says, pointing to a number of economic challenges he doesn't think are going away any time soon, from the US government's wide-ranging tariffs to the AI-driven semiconductor shortage.
Sean says there are tricks Nintendo is pulling to "try to mitigate that," but at the same time, he sees the company's decision to price digital games lower than physical ones as a way to lessen the blow of an incoming hardware price hike.
"We've seen inflation being a problem for a while now. Tariffs are a more recent nuisance, but they're not going away any time soon. The demand that AI is causing for chips is causing memory prices to go up, and within the past couple of weeks, we've had issues with oil prices going through the roof."
You'd be forgiven for questioning what oil prices have to do with the Switch 2, but Sean explains that high oil prices equate to high shipping costs as well as an increase in the price of helium, "a key byproduct" of oil crucial to the production of semiconductors and silicon wafers, which are used to make game cartridges.
"There's all of these world events that have been for a while, putting pressure on pricing, and putting pressure on margins, and they don't seem to be going away," he says. "Tariffs are going to be here for a while, it seems. Inflation is really stubborn, and I don't think the issues that we're seeing in the Middle East with oil pricing is going to help that. In fact, it's likely going to make inflation worsen, and stick around for even longer."
If you're paying attention, you know this is all to say: if you want a Switch 2 and have the means to buy one now, you should probably do so before they become more expensive. Sean points out that cheaper digital games work as a "concession" for steeper hardware prices, but, well, you need hardware to play software, so feel free to blame your friends at GamesRadar+ when your partner asks why you impulse-bought a Switch 2 while grocery shopping at Target.
After all, "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," says Sean.
Here are the best Switch 2 games you can play right now.
