Nintendo spoke to its shareholders this week. In the process, Nintendo became President Shuntaro Furukawa asked about the price development of the Nintendo Switch game console, reports Eurogamer.
Although the switch has now been released 6 years ago and sales are declining, no price reduction is planned. The reasons for this are inflation and the weak yen.
Price increase not planned, but also not excluded
Furukawa was then asked if the price of the switch might even increase. The question is justified, after all, Sony also increased the price of its PS5 last year. Furukawa: “We currently have no plans to raise prices. However, the yen remains weak and component prices remain high. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely.”
One price increase for the mobile game console is therefore not excluded. Most recently, Nintendo made headlines in the US because The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom is there 70 US-Dollar costs instead of 60 US dollars like the previous game. Furukawa was also asked about this. According to him, $70 is not the new standard price for Switch games. You decide on a case-by-case basis whether a game costs $60 or $70. However, he also said: “It is true that the development costs will increase, for example because of the advanced technology needed to enable online gaming. So the price of our new games is something we need to think about very carefully.”
No new Switch before April 2024
to a planned one successor console Furukawa didn’t give any details for the Switch. Nintendo has no plans to release a Switch successor or upgraded Switch this fiscal year. So that means: No Switch 2 before April 2024.
Analysts are currently assuming that a Switch successor will appear in late 2024. The console received the last upgrade in October 2021. Since then the Switch OLED available. This offers a better display than the original switch, but no increased computing or graphics power to display games better or more smoothly.
The switch urgently needs an upgrade or a successor. Nintendo’s flagship titles, such as Tears of Kingdom and Pokémon Crimson & Crimson, suffer visibly from the Switch’s poor hardware performance.
