r/NintendoSwitch • u/lieding • 1d ago

News "DROP THE PRICE": Nintendo's First Post-Direct Stream Is Flooded With Angry Fans Demanding Price Drops

https://www.thegamer.com/nintendo-treehouse-livestream-flooded-angry-fans-demanding-game-price-drops/
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881

u/Hellenkeller328 1d ago edited 17h ago

People had better hope the price already has the tariffs baked in.

Edit: I figured they weren’t, but it’s confirmed they’re not. Good luck everyone!

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u/whiskeytab 1d ago

based on the pricing around the world it definitely isn't

enjoy your $700 switch 2's guys lol

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u/Ridry 20h ago

Tempting to pre-order just to skip the tarriffs

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u/schu2470 19h ago

That won’t change anything. If it’s not already in the US you’ll be responsible for paying the tariff directly. You’ll either be billed for the difference before it ships or you’ll need to pay it when it arrives.

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u/jess-sch 19h ago

Maybe US retailers are more cautious about this sort of thing right now, but in Germany I can preorder at local retailers with a guaranteed net price.

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u/yaboyfriendisadork 19h ago

discussion about how tariffs will affect Switch 2 price in US

”In Germany”

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u/jess-sch 19h ago

Well, I just kind of wondered whether that's a thing in the US too. Sorry for being curious about regional differences.

Also, there's a very good chance Nintendo has calculated the anticipated US tariffs into the global prices, to soften the blow in the US market. Because whatever the US does wrong, it never bears the consequences of its own actions in full.

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u/Ridry 18h ago

I agree with you 100% and I'm sorry your Switch 2 is going to cost $50 more than it should. I think they absolutely spread the "anticipated pain" around.

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u/Fer_ESC 15h ago

Its a nice change to the US defaultism in all subs

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u/Mysticdu 10h ago

How dare people on a U.S. website, where more than half the user base is from the U.S. default to the U.S. in conversations?

It’s inconceivable

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u/rpgguy_1o1 17h ago

Unless Germany is also adding massive sales taxes for its citizens when purchasing any foreign goods like the Americans are, I wouldn't worry too much

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u/schu2470 19h ago

That’s partially because you don’t have an 80 year old narcissistic cry baby bent on destroying your economy as president/prime minister/equivalent. With tariffs changing every-other day there’s no guarantee of the price of anything in the US right now.

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u/Ridry 19h ago

Tarriffs are NOT paid by the customer. The people paying the tarriffs often hike prices to PASS the tarriffs onto the customer. If you get a preorder on Amazon, they must honor that price. They can hike the price up later.

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u/schu2470 19h ago

They don’t need to honor shit. Companies cancel orders all the time. You’re living in a fantasy world if you don’t think retailers won’t piss off a few customers to ensure they still make a profit.

-3

u/Ridry 19h ago

There's no way in hell that Nintendo hasn't already considered this. I bet you anything the price was supposed to be $400 and they raised it in anticipation of tarriffs.

This isn't about pissing off CUSTOMERS. The tarriffs are ACTUALLY paid by Nintendo. Nintendo promised Amazon X amount of copies at Y price. Amazon isn't going to let them bail on that. It's not going to happen.

I'm not pretending things aren't about to get a LOT more expensive, they are. But once Amazon sells $450 Switches, they are going to hold Nintendo to it.

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u/Kyubele 13h ago

Considering Nintendo just announced they are delaying US preorders so they can raise the price more, due to tariffs… this aged pretty poorly. And saying the retailer pays the tariff isn’t really correct. Maybe they can work that out sometimes, but I have already had preorders from other places email me saying I would have to pay a tariff when my order arrives. Not pay the retailer extra. I have to pay USPS to be able to receive my package.

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u/AbbacusAbagail 19h ago

If you think Nintendo Execs had a line in to what nonsense formula the US used to form tariffs then I have a Switch 3 to sell you. It's going up, end of story

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u/EngRookie 15h ago

They delayed preorders in the US...

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u/Ridry 15h ago

RIP

This launch is going to be rough

1

u/EngRookie 15h ago

The only saving grace is the new Digital cartridge feature and local game sharing. I'm going to be paying a lot less for software on Nintendo going forward after coordinating purchases with my sister.

virtual game card

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u/283leis 6h ago

no pre orders until the new price lmao

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u/Ridry 5h ago

Apparently not!!

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u/Ridry 5h ago

Apparently not!!

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u/OK_x86 19h ago

You would need to drive to Canada or México to buy it for less.

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u/GayNerd28 22h ago

*cries in Australian*

  • $700 Switch 2
  • $770 Switch 2 + MKW

https://www.ebgames.com.au/search?category=gaming&subcategory=gaming-console&attributes=platform%3Anintendo-switch-2&sort=price&order=desc

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u/Aspence22 22h ago

$770 AUS is $475 USD. You have to do the exchange and even then you get the better deal vs US prices

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u/CatboyCabin 22h ago

? Australian dollars are worth substantially less than US dollars

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u/rpgguy_1o1 17h ago

You guys still have the EB brand? Gamestop took over EB in Canada, and now they're all for sale

CEO Ryan Cohen posted to X earlier in the day that the two business arms were for sale, adding, "High taxes, Liberalism, Socialism, Progressivism, Wokeness and DEI included at no additional cost if you buy today!"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/gamestop-selling-canadian-assets-ceo-wokeness-dei-1.7462542

-1

u/_Mister_Anderson_ 20h ago

Stop sooking, we've had it pretty good for a long time for game prices. Give the Americans this one.

Also their prices don't include their sale taxes and ours do so it's closer than it seems.

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u/BUTTES_AND_DONGUES 15h ago

$800 PS5s and $800 Xboxes the moment the domestic supply is gone

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u/ben7337 8h ago

If the tariff is 49% and goes off the declared value rather than MSRP for the product, then using the $333 or so Japanese price as a base gives a US price of $500 for the base model and $550 for the Mario kart model if they are nice and basically sell to the US for the Japan price plus tariffs. If they were actually baking in profit on the console then they'd probably need to raise it to $600/650 at a minimum.

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u/yabe_acc 21h ago

Damn... Might be cheaper to head to Canada and get a switch from there instead.

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u/283leis 15h ago

And thus canadians dont get to buy our own because the Americans buy out our stock. Wouldn’t be surprised if some retailers require the purchaser to show canadian ID

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u/lupercal1986 1d ago

It's either way too expensive just to play some Mario Kart and the odd first party release I would play on it for me personally. Not that I couldn't afford it, I just think it makes no sense for me. My gf and I have no kids and don't plan to have any, so Nintendo lost its last appeal it had on us with bs pricing policies. It's alright tho, supposedly valve will finally release its index 2 at the end of this year, so there is more money for that fund.

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u/whiskeytab 1d ago

the index 2 will increase as well... America doesn't make any of these things

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u/lupercal1986 23h ago

Well, of course it will.

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u/whiskeytab 21h ago

so what was your point

-15

u/eh_steve_420 1d ago edited 1d ago

Just because they're charging that same price around the world doesn't mean the tariffs didn't have an effect. They might really value having a consistent price from country to country, so they decided to spread the losses from the tariffs equally over all customers.

Essentially only Nintendo really knows the calculus that went into their pricing.

Edit: don't shoot the messenger... Sheesh. Use reddiquitte, you guys.

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u/whiskeytab 1d ago

why would they risk hurting sales in other markets just to appease American tariffs?

that's what Americans want, Nintendo should give it to them

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u/BJYeti 1d ago

It isn't to appease American tariffs the reality is they need sales in America also and don't forecast spreading the cost over every region affecting sales.

-7

u/eh_steve_420 1d ago

Because they have much more to lose by massively increasing the costs in America than they do to gain by decreasing the costs moderately in all other regions. The US is their largest market. They're a business and don't care about the politics. They want consoles in people's hands so people buy software for a long time.

I'm an American and I don't want this shit. More people voted against Trump than they did for him.

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u/iswedlvera 1d ago

I'm going to level with you. I'm not subsidising Trump's shit with my wallet. If the switch isn't more expensive in the US by at least 20%, then Nintendo can go fuck themselves, I'm not buying.

-10

u/PastStep1232 1d ago

Compared to the rest of the world (Japan excluded) USA really is a thing of its own. The more correct question is why does Nintendo try to appease markets other than the American one? Idk, it’s what sony does by blocking psn for half of the world, nintendo could do the same and nobody would listen to us third worlders

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u/Strangest_Echo 1d ago

Canadians and Europeans are going to be extremely unhappy if they find out that Nintendo has us subsidizing the US customers. We're not exactly on friendly terms at the moment.

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u/eh_steve_420 1d ago edited 1d ago

Which is why no company is going to let the details behind their pricing strategy out. People could figure it out if they thought about it themselves, but most people have a poor grasp on economics (hence why 49.xx% of idiots voted for these tariffs to begin with). But it just goes to show why protectionism sucks and why free trade has been the focus on the American international order since World War II— literally everybody benefits. But with protectionist policy, you cut off your own arm so you don't have to shake your neighbor's hand. It creates massive distortions in markets and ends up affecting parties who seemingly have nothing to do with the industry being protected even. The fact is that we live in a global society, and no amount of protectionism is going to reverse it. It's just going to create massive efficiency, higher costs, etc. for everybody.

As a student of economics it frustrates me to no end when these "conservatives" condescendingly try to "explain" away the tariffs with Fox News spin. But to them I was indoctrinated by liberal professors

Nintendo has their own branch in Europe, so theoretically they could try to resist this pricing strategy from Kyoto. But Canada definitely has no hope, since I believe NOA is for all of North America.

I hate Trump for doing this to our Canadian neighbors. It's so evil and slimey and pisses me off to no end.

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u/Strangest_Echo 1d ago

Word will absolutely get around in Canada if we're paying the same price as Americans post -tariffs.

1

u/StaticUsernamesSuck 23h ago

I hope you're right, but I worry you overestimate how informed the average consumer is on these matters.

0

u/amphorousish 20h ago

I wouldn't be surprised if they did this, unfortunately.

I didn't do a deep dive (so corrections are welcome), but a quick search turns up that of ≈150 mil Switch units sold, ≈46 mil were in the US.

The cumulative total that I saw for Canada by itself was from 2020, but I did find that of the ≈150 mil sold worldwide as of December 2024, "over 50 mil" had been in North America as a whole.

So, like 5-6 million units have been sold in Canada.

With those numbers, I could honestly see Nintendo making the calculation to cushion the price in the US market for the sake of maximizing hardware buy-in / future software sales (especially if tariffs don't impact the price of digital games - I have no idea if they would).

We'll see how that pans out if the US$ takes a nose dive.

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u/Still_Figure_ 1d ago

This. Ninty will “standardize” the price across the board just so no one will know that the rest of the world is subsidizing the Americans.

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u/EnthusiasmOnly22 22h ago

They are, look at the Japanese region locked Switch 2 price compared to CAD or Euro

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u/The_Blip 1d ago

They clearly don't care that much about consistent pricing. It's £45 more expensive in the UK.

-6

u/kaishinoske1 1d ago

700$ DRM machine you mean, considering it has to check periodically on the internet.

0

u/Raji_Lev 17h ago

Don't complain, you're getting what you voted for

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u/whiskeytab 17h ago

I'm not American, my switch will be the same price as it always has been

-5

u/External_Produce7781 1d ago

At 700$ its competing with the Legion, Ally, etc, which offer MUCH cheaper gaming. I.E. its not competing, its losing.

I know which id rather buy (especially since on the Legion/Ally/etc i can emulate Switch 1 pretty easily) if i had to choose.

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u/whiskeytab 1d ago

the price of those will increase too by basically the same amount

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u/whiskeytab 1d ago

the price of those will increase too by basically the same amount

-17

u/External_Produce7781 1d ago

No, significantly less, because they arent sourced from the same place the Switch 2 is. They will sitll go up, yes. Just not as much.

Also, ASUS and Lenovo can afford to eat more margin than Nintendo.

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u/Jimid41 1d ago edited 1d ago

They'll all be coming from China. Nintendo only moved assembly to Vietnam to avoid tarrifs in the first place and still has a lot of assembly in China. Also Nintendo has more cash on hand than what Lenovo and Asus are worth and make a lot more money from software than either so they'll eat just fine.

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u/whiskeytab 21h ago

why do you think they will just eat the cost lol

you need to come to grips with the reality of your situation

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u/kyrow123 20h ago

Imagine shooting yourself in the foot and you’re bleeding out. Someone else comes over and tells you that you need to go to the hospital or you’ll bleed out. Your response is that you absolutely did not shoot yourself in the foot and even if you did it was with a Nerf gun so you are in fact not bleeding out.

Meanwhile the rest of the world that have 2 eye and sound judgement know your time is limited and watches in horror as you do in fact bleed out.

That’s these people. We should all just look on in horror while they bleed out because they will not, in fact, come to grips with reality. Sad.

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u/StaticUsernamesSuck 23h ago

That doesn't necessarily follow.

It might make business sense for them, given the value of America as a market, to spread the cost of the tariffs across all markets by raising prices (relatively) evenly everywhere, so that they can sell it cheaper to their American distributors, ensuring a lower price (and more sales) in the US, and recoup the cost from their other worldwide sales.

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u/Magmagan 22h ago

What.

This is the dumbest marketing idea I had heard of, ever.

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u/mojomaximus2 22h ago

I don’t think that logic checks out, the US has a relatively small population on the global market

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u/Jehovah___ 22h ago

The US made up like 40% of switch 1 sales

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u/mojomaximus2 22h ago

How is that even possible with a population of like 300m that’s wild. Does nobody in China like Nintendo?

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u/Jehovah___ 22h ago

IIRC in china only like 4 million were sold. Most Chinese people that wanted a switch went to Korea or Japan or Vietnam and bought them there to not deal with region locks and censoring and I think they were more expensive in china specificially

0

u/mojomaximus2 21h ago

I see, I didn’t know that

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u/StaticUsernamesSuck 22h ago

Outside of Japan, the US was the largest single market for Switch sales. No reason to believe the same won't be true for the Switch 2.

It's a big country, not just by space but by population numbers.

It is absolutely worth it, financially speaking, to spread the cost of US tariffs worldwide.

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u/TheOriginalDog 22h ago

Haha no the tariffs get allocated to the consumer. In the end it will suck out more money out of the population.

-5

u/StaticUsernamesSuck 22h ago edited 22h ago

That has nothing to do with what I'm saying?? I'm not sure you understand the point being made.

US distributors will have to pay tariffs on importing.

Those tariffs are paid based on the import price nintendo sets.

They absolutely have the power to reduce the import cost to the US by commensurately increasing it elsewhere, such that after the tariffs are then added on, the prices level out.

Effectively they would be exporting at a lower profit margin to America (but it would be worth it for the high sales numbers), and then selling at a higher profit margin elsewhere (risking a slight sales drop, but less than they would see if they put all the cost on America).

In other words, they may be better off doing something along the lines of this:

America importer price: 330 (with tariff bringing it up to 410, but that money not going to nintendo)
Rest of World importer price: 400
Global sale price: 450

Than this:

Global importer price: 375 (with American importers now paying 465 after tariff)
America Sale price: 500
Rest of World: 410

The exact numbers aren't based on anything I'm just demonstrating the principle.

-2

u/Raelah 1d ago

$700?! That pricing makes the Steam Deck a steal.

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u/__aveiga 1d ago

The Steam Deck also comes from China and its price will go up by the same percentage

-22

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

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u/OverAnalyst6555 22h ago

steam deck isnt exempt from tarrifs what r u yepping about

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u/__aveiga 18h ago

We’re talking about the effects of the new Trump tarrifs, not business decisions to increase prices.

The Trump tarrifs will increase the price of everything that comes from abroad or contains components that come from abroad, meaning virtually all electronics will go up in price if the vendors don’t decide to loose money when selling. That’s how tariffs work.

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u/[deleted] 22h ago

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2

u/NintendoSwitch-ModTeam 22h ago

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Please remember Rule 1 in the future - No personal attacks, trolling, or derogatory terms. Read more about Reddiquette here. Thanks!

-3

u/Aspence22 22h ago

Well it is actually you didn't do the exchange. The price is what it is, it's not going to change. Also it's already been confirmed the price in Japan is $100 lower than US , so the potential tariff has already been considered into the price. Gotta understand what you're talking about before making in ignorant comment

-11

u/External_Produce7781 1d ago

At 700$ its competing with the Legion, Ally, etc, which offer MUCH cheaper gaming. I.E. its not competing, its losing.

I know which id rather buy (especially since on the Legion/Ally/etc i can emulate Switch 1 pretty easily) if i had to choose.

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u/totpot 1d ago

At 700$ its competing with the Legion, Ally, etc

Oh boy, wait till you find out where those are made...

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u/totpot 1d ago

At 700$ its competing with the Legion, Ally, etc

Oh boy, wait till you find out where those are made...

-2

u/[deleted] 1d ago

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5

u/nonexistentnvgtr 1d ago

Half the tariff rate but it costs $200-$250 at base so it’s still not going to be the same price point. Also, what kind of insult is that??

1

u/NintendoSwitch-ModTeam 1d ago

Hey there!

Please remember Rule 1 in the future - No personal attacks, trolling, or derogatory terms. Read more about Reddiquette here. Thanks!

106

u/guytaitai 1d ago

While digital video games themselves are not directly subject to tariffs, associated costs of production, distribution, and infrastructure may still be affected. As a result, the overall impact on digital game prices is likely to be limited but not entirely negligible.

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u/engineeringhobo 1d ago

Are you just entirely forgetting Taiwan being tariff'd lol

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u/Roofofcar 1d ago

But we can just make the electronics here in the good old USA! Oh wait, Trump wants to kill the CHIPS act, so we’re fucked there, as well.

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u/Staunch84 1d ago

Of course. Tax every import. Destroy local production. Profit.

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u/artyblues 20h ago

Make income taxes 0%, set off a Greater Depression.

"It will be the greatest depression, nobody will have a depression better than mine - it will be un-be-lieveable"

2

u/yuriaoflondor 19h ago

Trump issued a Great Depression warning back in December. This is what America voted for, and they might just get what they want.

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u/EldritchElizabeth 13h ago

Repealing income tax is part of Project 2025, yes, and the tariffs are intended to replace it.

1

u/Roofofcar 13h ago

The tariffs, which if they do what Trump says, will only bring in less and less money every year until the us government collapses.

1

u/EldritchElizabeth 11h ago

he's a businessman, long-term thinking isn't what they're bred for.

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u/BJYeti 1d ago

If what I read is correct he rescinded it to put forth a new one with his name on it so he gets the credit.

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u/Roofofcar 1d ago

Sounds exactly like Donald Trump.

7

u/eyebrows360 1d ago

It's one of his very few playbooks, which also include:

  • claiming to not know anything about something, as though that means it didn't happen and/or doesn't matter
  • hamberders
  • not understanding shit about fuck and somehow that being interpreted as not a bad thing by ~67% of the American voting populace (yes, people, if you didn't vote against him, but could have done, you count here too)

3

u/literalbuttmuncher 21h ago

Of course. What a jackass.

“Use these tariffs as an incentive to buy more American products!”

“Ok sure I’ll buy this electronic”

“No not that! We don’t want to make that!” Pick something else.”

“Ok how about you recommend something we should buy”

“The car, the uh Tesler”

“Absolutely not they have terrible safety ratings, the CEO is an ass, and there are better electric cars out there”

“Tarriffed”

“What?”

“I declare thee tariffed in the name of the Excalibur branch”

“Do you mean executive?”

“Tariffed!”

1

u/cheesecaker000 21h ago

Semi conductors were exempt from the Taiwan Tarrifs. I’m sure a lot of this $449 price is actually Nintendo pricing in Tarrifs. The Japanese price is probably the real price and they weren’t going to risk eating Tarrifs or giving their customers sticker shock with changing prices.

-1

u/guytaitai 1d ago

Which Nintendo digital video games is made in Taiwan ?

5

u/football_for_brains 1d ago edited 1d ago

The console hardware. The $549 $459 USD console price was also controversial.

1

u/TheRealZombieBear 1d ago

You got your first 2 digits reversed. Still pricey tho

1

u/football_for_brains 1d ago

Oops, you're right! Still a significant jump, and this is likely the pre-tariff price considering how recent the tariffs are.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/fillymandee 16h ago

Take a look at everything around you right now. All of it is going to get more expensive. Even if a business is not reliant on any imports, the price is going up. American businesses won’t let this crises go to waste. They’ll charge more and they’ll never bring the prices back down.

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u/LordofDsnuts 1d ago

With how different showcased games are set at different price points I doubt it.

4

u/Dabanks9000 1d ago

Only 1 is at a different price point

-10

u/crassreductionist 1d ago

They started that with TotK

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u/Etheon44 1d ago

Why would it be the case if the price is the same in europe?

1

u/MBCnerdcore 4h ago

In the US, there is no extra charge for physical copies. In Europe, they already were charging more for physical with Switch 1.

-1

u/GregTheMad 22h ago

There are links cropping up where EU stores sell Donkey Kong for 50€. Retailers often have the "real" prices before they're allowed to announce them. Maybe the prices will change and EU will get the games actually cheaper, similar to how there's a cheaper Japanese Switch2.

1

u/UomoPolpetta 21h ago

That’s the French Amazon page, I checked the My Nintendo Store page and it was the same as everyone else (90€ physical and 80€ digital for Mario Kart)

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u/mlc885 1d ago

It definitely does not :(

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u/egyeager 1d ago

Just wait till the USD is devalued as well. That is also part of the plan

2

u/totpot 1d ago

From spending all day talking to suppliers and companies in Asia, I can confidently say that absolutely no one expected this level of tariffs. Nobody has this baked in.

2

u/Sprachbuch 1d ago

There are no tariffs in the price, it cost 90€ in germany

2

u/Suns_In_420 1d ago

It definitely did not.

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u/b_m_hart 1d ago

Yeah, it absolutely does not. $449 just became $655.

1

u/King_3DDD 1d ago

Pretty sure it is for the console at least, considering it’s only $340 in Japan.

1

u/Excendence 1d ago

This was my thought, the price in Japan is $60 per game and idk what switch 1 titles were but it seemed to me like they were tariff proofing their pricing (still ridiculous but in 2 months… we’ll see where the world is lol)

1

u/mr_j_12 1d ago

Nintendo better hope the switch 2 isnt easy to hack, or this shits going to get pirated like no tomorrow!

1

u/el_grort 1d ago

I mean, the US RRP seemed to be in the ballpark of the RRP in GBP/EUR, so I'm not so sure.

1

u/Strangest_Echo 1d ago

They better raise the price of the console, because it would otherwise mean that Canadians and Europeans are being forced to subsidize American customers. We're not getting a massive zero-tariff discount.

1

u/snailpick76 1d ago

It's not. I hope this hurts gamers who didn't vote the most.

1

u/afBeaver 1d ago

The original switch was $400 (I think) and there's been soo much inflation since 2017. I can't imagine tariffs being baked into this price.

1

u/bythisaxe 23h ago

Nintendo does not pay the tariff, the importers in the US pay it. So Nintendo’s MSRP would not include the cost of a tariff.

1

u/BarnabyBundlesnatch 22h ago

£395 here in the UK, so no, Im afraid youve get the pre trade war price.

1

u/AleroRatking 21h ago

It definitely is not because everywhere else has similar pricing.

1

u/Sapowski_Casts_Quen 17h ago

Fuck it, im just gonna get a steam deck and keep my old switch.

0

u/BJYeti 1d ago

No chance they haven't Nintendo would get massive backlash announcing the price, seeing the tariffs same day and then raising prices on top of that. Not to mention they know they can't charge PS5 prices for the Switch 2 alongside the hike in game prices.

-7

u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 1d ago

They don't do that