Here’s what readers think the Switch 2 will cost
Last week’s unveiling of the Nintendo Switch 2 brought a few surprises: maybe the Joy-Cons are also a mouse? – but above all it left us with more questions than answers. And at the top of the list of questions is the big question for many individuals or families considering an upgrade: How much will the thing cost? I’ve spent a lot of words and graphs making a case for $399, but I’m just an Internet wimp, and if multiplayer video games and a toxic social media landscape have taught me one thing, it’s that everyone wants to be heard become. That’s why we asked for your opinion!
Just over 50% of you agree with our analysis that the Nintendo Switch 2 will debut at a price of $399 at launch later this year. This figure includes a look back at Nintendo’s historical pricing strategy, both in absolute terms ( including adjustments for inflation, the actual price) and in relative terms (reflecting the competitive position in the market at the time of issue). Of course, Nintendo may choose to go lower or higher, and perhaps that historic pricing strategy is no longer considered sufficient in today’s competitive landscape… but given what we know of the Switch 2 so far is that it shares a whole lot of Switch DNA – including the name – I’m pretty sure Nintendo isn’t planning to upset the mushroom bandwagon here.
A whopping 25% of you think Nintendo will match the Switch OLED model’s current price of $349. That would make the Nintendo Switch 2 $100 less than the asking price of its counterparts from Sony and Microsoft, and just $50 more than the $299 the original Switch commanded in 2017 and still commands. I’m not saying you’re wrong, and perhaps Nintendo would be wise to pursue a lower price and solidify its advantage for this next cycle… but I’m not sure it needs to. Or now’s the time to finally drop Switch prices and let the Switch 2 take up the remaining space, as reader Lanmanna considers here:
As much as I don’t want it to cost $399, I think it will be that price. The hopeful part wants it to be $349 (with the Switch 1 models finally getting their first MSRP cut), but I just don’t see it happening.
From there it really gets divided among the remaining options. I like reader NegativeZero’s concept of a more expensive $449 version. In fact, after I published my piece last week, I regretted not going down the multi-SKU rabbit hole, so thanks for bringing it up you brought! I don’t know if all 9% of you thought Nintendo would start at $449, matching PS5 and Xbox Series double digits, the number has legs!
My prediction is a $399 base SKU, but there will be a more expensive $449 SKU that has some sort of color gimmick (like the Switch’s red and blue joycons) and a bundled game (probably the new Mario Kart) and that will be the one people actually end up buying.
The next one, with 4% of results, is a wild one: $299. That would match exactly the same price the original Switch sells for – and sells quite well! – Today. It’s a $50 discount on the OLED model which, aside from the fancy screen, has the same 2017-era guts as the original Switch. But maybe, just maybe, these folks are expecting some sort of Switch 2 Lite model to debut alongside the larger model we saw in the reveal video. The $199 asking price for a Switch Lite in September 2019 equates to about $245 in today’s money. So with that in mind, a price of $299 for a smaller, non-dockable model would still be a premium.
Now we’re really getting into tinfoil hat territory. With just over 3% of the vote, 85 of you all think it will be $499. That would put the Nintendo Switch 2 at a much higher asking price than any other Nintendo hardware since the release of the original NES, which explains the inflation. That original NES model (I’ll explain, in case you’re not as old as me), was the Deluxe Set, which was sold in specific test markets while the Japanese newcomer considered its release strategy for the United States. It cost $179 (about $520 today) and included not only the NES console, but also the ROB robot, the NES Zapper light gun, two controllers, and two games. It was earn that Deluxe name.
And finally, only 1% of respondents suggested Nintendo would start with a price of $249. Again, taking inflation into account, this would price the Nintendo Switch 2 more like a handheld – à la Switch Lite, or the Nintendo DS – then as a home console. Knowing what we think we know about the reported power of the Switch 2, even in a handheld version, I can’t imagine a world where Nintendo subsidizes its hardware to any degree, not to mention this degree. But maybe in some timeline we’ll all wake up to a $249 Nintendo Switch 2 that outperforms the best consoles, has all-day battery life, and comes with Mother 3 as a packing material.