It is time, Nintendo's Switch needs a formal price cut
On Friday January 13th 2017, Nintendo revealed the Switch in full to the world and they did so via a massive in-person/streamed event from Tokyo and then select locations around the world had in-person events the next day, it was a big deal.
One of the pieces of information revealed during the event was the release date and price, which was confirmed for us soon after the event via a press release.
“Nintendo announced today that the new Nintendo Switch console will launch worldwide on Friday 3rd March for a suggested retail price of AU$469.95.”
As you can see, the official price for Nintendo’s, at the time, unreleased console was $469.95, and since then the official price has remained that. The below screenshot was taken direct from the EB Games Switch hardware page on May 7th and as you can see the price for the standard model is still that same price, excluding the 95 cents.
Now of course, Nintendo has had promotions over the years and retailers have certainly dropped the price every now and again, at one point Amazon Australia had the Switch down to $315 AUD, which was an insane price and this was back in 2019.
Since the release of the first console, we have had the Switch Lite come out and its RRP was set at $329.95 and then later on the Switch OLED with its $539.95 RRP. Those two consoles are still sticking to their launch prices, again discounting any sales that have taken place.
Given that the Switch family is now 7 years old and with the Switch successor set to be revealed sometime within the current Nintendo fiscal year, it is now time for all the hardware to get a price drop. Something Nintendo seems relucent to do, for whatever reason.
The last time that a Nintendo console, home or handheld, got a price drop in Australia, was the Nintendo 3DS and that was due to its lacklustre launch. The Wii U, which did launch somewhat better than the 3DS, never got a price drop in its entire life and that accounts for time when the sale almost ground to a halt. The last home console for Nintendo to get a price drop was the Wii, which got its first price drop after 4 years on the market, so they are not opposed to it.
However, for some reason Nintendo seems unwilling to discount anything this generation, the consoles are still the same price as day one and the Nintendo Selects program has never kicked off for the Switch. The last time we ever got a game in that program was May 8, 2016 for the Wii U.
With the Switch selling over 140 million consoles, there is no denying that Nintendo have made their money on it. Now while we have seen other hardware makers drop the price as the consoles life extends, that is not the Nintendo way. The Nintendo Gamecube saw an incredible 50% price drop in North America, just 2 years into the consoles life, with the Wii taking 6 years to do the same. While we got a Gamecube price drop, we never got one for the Wii, though there we some bundles.
So what is my point, well if Nintendo wanted to do, they could easily slash the price by $100-$150 on each model and still make money.
