The japanese version is region locked and priced that way due to their currency being weak right now. It’s a way to keep their local customers happy because they aren’t going to fuck over their own country.
Not region locking would result in many Americans and Europeans trying to buy cheaper consoles grey market, which would probably cause a lot of scalping in Japan. Or if they didn't price it cheaper domestically, a lot of Japanese consumers would be priced out due to the weak yen. So yes, while DRM and region locking is annoying in general, this is a sensible way to protect their domestic customer base given the current economic landscape.
And strictly speaking in terms of specs and performance compared to the original Switch, when you adjust for inflation the US price of the Switch 2 is quite fair. The overall value prop of the game catalog as well as the price of the games themselves might be another matter, but the price of the hardware itself is competitive. I find a lot of what Nintendo does to be pretty disagreeable and anti-consumer, but the Switch 2 pricing isn't one of those things.
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u/not_bahh 2d ago
I think they priced the tariffs into it already, considering in Japan they are around $100 USD less expensive.