Nintendo Rules Out Further Switch 2 Price Rises as Memory Supply Holds
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said on 5 November 2026 that the company is not considering additional changes to the Switch 2's price. The console's starting price now stands at $499, after a $50 increase, according to The Verge.
On supply, Furukawa said there has been no major change to the memory situation and that Nintendo is in a position to secure sufficient quantities. The same report notes a separate development on the component side. A Switch 2 cartridge supplier has announced plans to stop making ROM memory (the read-only chips used in game cartridges) in order to focus on memory for data centers. The announcement concerns the supplier's own production plans. On the facts available, it does not alter Nintendo's stated supply position.
Price pressure is not confined to Nintendo. Microsoft has raised the starting price of the Xbox Series S from $299 to $499, and Sony has raised the PlayStation 5 starting price to $649. The three platform holders now sit at notably different price points, with the Switch 2 at the lower end of the group's current starting prices.
Demand has moved in the opposite direction from price. Nintendo reported that Switch 2 sales declined 37.4% year over year. In its November 2026 earnings, the company reported revenue of 448.2 billion Japanese yen, or $2.8 billion, as reported by CNBC. Software is a different line of the business. Nintendo's annual report, published on 29 June 2026, put Switch 2 software unit sales for the fiscal year at 48.71 million units, per the company's annual report.
Investors have reacted to the pricing and the trajectory. Reuters reported that Nintendo shares fell 7% in Tokyo on 11 May 2026 after the Switch 2 price hikes, amid concerns over a lack of high-profile games. Earlier, on 4 February 2026, Reuters reported that Nintendo shares had slid 11% on investor concerns about momentum for the Switch 2.
The broader context here is a hardware cycle running against a tight component market. A console maker can set a retail price, but it cannot set the output of a memory fab. The supplier's decision to shift capacity toward data-center memory shows that allocation across the memory market is shaped by more than any single device category. Furukawa's statement that Nintendo can secure sufficient quantities is a claim about the company's procurement position, and that position will show up in shipment and pricing data over the coming quarters.
In my view, the more useful question for the industry is whether current price points hold once the hardware reaches its next stage of demand. The software figures suggest the installed base is engaged, and an engaged base is the asset a platform owner can build on. Hardware is where the memory question becomes concrete. A stable supply of parts lets a company plan launches, bundles and price moves rather than react to them. If Nintendo's supply assurance holds, the platform keeps room to manoeuvre while the rest of the market reprices.
