The Switch is over six years old now, but incredibly enough, the console has never seen a single price cut to date. While Nintendo has, of course, introduced both cheaper and costlier options with the Switch Lite and the Switch OLED, it’s very rare for all models of a console to keep on selling at the same price they launched for this deep into its lifecycle.
And it doesn’t seem like that’ll be changing anytime soon. Nintendo saw a marked slowdown in sales for the Switch in FY 2022/23 (April 2022-March 2023), and has said that even hitting its target of 15 million units shipped in the current fiscal period (ending on April 1 next year) is going to be a bit difficult. Given that slowed momentum, is the company thinking of implementing price drops to give people greater encouragement to buy a Switch?
Not really, according to president Shuntaro Furukawa, who said in the company’s recent Q&A session with investors that overall production costs remain high, which means Nintendo has no current plans for a Switch price cut (or, conversely, for a Switch price increase).
“With regard to hardware, prices for certain materials have fallen but overall costs remain high,” Furukawa said. “We must also continue to account for the impact of factors such as inflation and foreign exchange rates. Production was highly impacted during the previous fiscal year (ended March 31, 2023), so we are ensuring our parts procurement occurs far enough in advance to ensure stable production. Even if raw material prices decrease, it will take time for this to be reflected in manufacturing costs. Currently, there are no plans to reduce the price of our hardware during this fiscal year. On the other hand, while we also have no plans to raise prices, the yen continues to be weak, and procurement costs remain high, so we will continue to monitor the situation carefully.”
Of course, over six years into its life, any console is bound to suffer slowed sales, no matter how successful it is, and with over 125 million units sold worldwide, the Switch has certainly been a massive success.
Reports have repeatedly insisted that work is underway at Nintendo for a Switch successor, development on which is allegedly “progressing well”, though it’s claimed that it’s unlikely to launch before Spring 2024 “at the earliest”. That also aligns with Nintendo’s own recent statement, with the company confirming that it doesn’t intend to release any new hardware this fiscal year.
