Nintendo raises the Switch 1 price from $299 to $339 / The Switch OLED price jumped by $50 on Sunday, to $399.99.
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Comments65https://www.theverge.com/news/717610/nintendo-switch-original-price-increaseOpen linkView original on piefed.social
So price increase in the US due to tariffs, as expected, but they raised the prices in Canada too? What kind of bullshit is that? Fuck you, Nintendo.
That's how tariff pricing always works. Doesn't matter if the tariff pricing affects them or not, they'll raise prices as much as they can.
Video game console prices didn’t rise because Brazil has high tariffs on electronics.
How many Switches sold in Brazil vs. USA?
How does amount of units sold in one country that decided to enact tariffs relates to prices of products sold between other sovereign countries? I would like to emphasise that world doesn’t revolve around the US and that US citizens democratically made it clear that they are no longer interested in attempting to make it so.
Did the price go up in Europe too?
As a Canadian, my experience is many products have traditionally been imported from overseas into the USA, and then redistributed into Canada, leaving us with exposure to their tariffs.
Suppliers have been trying to eliminate this middle step generally but I don’t know about Nintendo specifically.
We’re good for now, at least on surface. Given that Switch 2 prices in the US didn’t go up after tariffs it seems like we’re subsidising Yanks for some reason. There’s also Japan-exclusive region-locked Switch 2 SKU that’s about $350.
I'm not from the USA and neither is Nintendo but I'm sure it's one of their biggest markets.
Reduced sales will hurt. Nintendo has enough cash to eat the cost but that sets a bad precedent.
They need to make up lost money somewhere. It's probably easier for them to raise prices everywhere than raise US ones even more. Especially since a Canadian switch is the same thing.
Do they lump North America altogether?
It’s possible they ship to Canada via USA
they probably lump all of the americas. As in they likely enter via USA and are redistributed there, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
Yeah, not sure why they raised prices in Canada, and funnily that happened before US price increase, so don't think it's linked to tariff.
No, it happened at the same time, we were just warned in advance. Once again, Canada gets fucked to make things level with American pricing despite our lower dollar.
Oh, don't know then. Someone suggested in comment below that maybe their supply-chain for Canada goes through US, if true that can make sense. Making a new route would also cost, and going through US will mean paying tariff.
Even then, I think they should have at least kept the Switch 1 prices low, if they can't decrease it, at least keep it same.
But the shouty man on TV told me tariffs were good? Why vibeo janes cost more?
Well, long term Americans could be making Nintendo Switches domestically. They’d be more expensive but blue collar workers could be making more money. It’s not entirely dumb as everyone here paints it even if the implementation is laughably bad. Previous term Orange man made TSMC build a cutting-edge fab which by now is operational which is also pretty important for supply chain security in case China invades Taiwan. Europe would be fucked because we didn’t do enough for domestic manufacturing. Of course Orange man can’t make up his mind between using tariffs to forward personal agenda and meddling with internal politics of trading partners of the US but sometimes he gets it right. Toys being slightly more expensive is probably lower than tan spray on his list of priorities.
Moving all manufacturing to the US is not even remotely viable.
It’s not viable without upsetting those who benefit from status quo, that’s for sure. Many people don’t seem to be happy with that status quo though. They picked wrong answer to the correct question but they weren’t that far off.
It's actually just not viable, period. I don't think you understand just how complicated the logistics are, or how long the process would take even if they were to start relocating right now.
Why? Do you mean the only viable model is to outsource cheap labour to Asia forever? People over there will move on eventually.
It's not just about labor. It's about entire supply chains. It's not exactly trivial to pack up and move everything. And it's ultimately good for a global economy to have regions that specialize in specific kinds of manufacturing, it's not necessary for the US to try and make everything domestic just for the sake of being domestic.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "move on", do you think manfuacturing is somehow ephemeral?
All you’re saying it’s complex and that it will take time. Americans put a man on the moon, they’re a resourceful bunch. Some got pretty lazy though.
I don’t think people in Asia are different from others and will likely be interested in pivoting their economies to be less dependent on a single thing. China already started so things moved to Vietnam, Indonesia etc. which for now are cheaper. Eventually „the west” is going to run out of places to outsource dirty work to. Colonialism is visibly losing steam, hence the rise of fascism which is just colonialism pointed inwards.
You do know that Nintendo is a Japanese company, right?
The whole protectionist angle doesn't really work when we're talking about products that do not (and cannot) have domestic alternatives.
Cannot? That’s super defeatist. US had pretty good electronics manufacturing capability until somewhat recently.
No, it's not remotely viable because something always has to come from somewhere. The US, or any particular place on Earth, does not have every necessary resource available. Or might only have poor quality/purity resources available.
So even if you were to somehow move every manufacturing pipeline into a single country, that country still relies on getting lithium from other countries where it's abundant, or magnesium, or titanium, or sulphur, or cobalt, or gold, or platinum, or perhaps even just decent steal.
And since you're getting those resources from other countries, it's far more logistically viable to process those resources in the countries where they're mined.
And since those country are already processing the resources, it'll also be logistically way better if they can process them into basic components too.
What are the resources required to build electronics that are unavailable in the US? There’s no infrastructure, yeah, but saying a country the size of US is limited in what’s available resource-wise sounds silly.
"Big" does mean "everything is available". But you are starting to ask the right questions:
What resources are needed to build electronics?
Where does one find these resources in abundance?
If you're actually interested in learning the answers to these questions, you can find out the average rare earth minerals needed for a CPU or a GPU. You can also find the resource distribution of minerals on Earth, and their expected purities.
You'll probably also figure out why certain countries make the diplomatic decisions that they do. Take, for example, the mineral deal between Ukraine and the US...
It’s not that rare earth minerals are this rare, it’s that their extraction is extremely bad for the environment so most western countries are happy to make it a brown people problem.
To be fair TSMC built, then expanded their fab plans due to the Chips Act passed under Biden. Trump called to repeal said act but realizing its bi-partisan support decided instead to "reshape" it via executive order so he can dip his corrupt fingers into it and sell access. Last part there is my addition, but well within his actions on a multitude of other industries. Biden and co understood, targeted tariffs and supply line security needs to be accompanied with domestic subsidy, unlike Trumps ignorant across the board tariff shit, which just serves as another sales tax on US citizens. That being said, it is crazy unrealistic to have a majority US made switch without crazy investment in US manufacturing.
Trump is a moron in general and his narcissistic/hyperactive behaviour is cringe-worthy but fabs don’t get built in a single term. Biden continued many of Trumps policies because they were popular, funding ICE and increasing deportations included.
In what dream world do you live in where Nintendo manufactures consoles in the US?
Thats not my dream, I’m not even American, it’s the Americans that voted for it. It’s the dream world where Nintendo cannot afford not to, as far as I understand. Seems doable even if I cannot imagine that transition won’t suck.
We found the repedocan
What’s a repedocan? DuckDuckGo shows me some bike taxis and washing machine manuals.
Sounds like a portmanteau of republican and pedo to me
If liberals call pedo anyone they disagree with now we’ve reached a new low I guess. Funnily enough I’m just a socialist and I try to signal my disgust with Trump as clearly as possible not too confuse liberals too much.
Here are couple of more shockers:
Dude just say your with the pedos God.
This seems to be an unmoderated community/instance so I guess anything goes.
Do you reckon it’s more of a FAS thing that makes you go around calling people paedophiles or is it head trauma from being dropped repeatedly by your drunk mother?
they are insane
I saw an article today that said: nearly everyone who bought a switch 2, bought mario kart. Wow that's crazy how they bought the only game for the console.
"sont wanna buy my overpriced console? Fuck you they are all overpriced now." - John Nintendo
This does make me wonder how much Nintendo are subsidising US bound Switch 2s, considering the price on that hasn't increased since launch (yet). Maybe they think it's worth it to take a hit on it and try and make it up with higher priced software?
I’ll play my backlog
It's ok, there are plenty 2nd hand. Scammers incoming.
Yeah, right now is the worst time to buy a factory new Switch 1. Millions of people are currently trying to sell their Switch 1 becuase they upgraded to a Switch 2, so you can get them second hand for pennies
Interesting timing with tariffs and the Switch 2 release, especially with prices rising in Canada as others have mentioned.
It is kind of perfect timing to blame a price increase on tariffs when the real reason is to upsell to the new product line. Especially for docked players the OLED S1 at $400 vs S2 at $450 now seems like an easy decision to upgrade your purchase for the performance.
Nintendo is really just speed running a downfall at this point. So sad since the devs at nintendo can really make some incredible art with limited time and hardware.
That being said they can shoot a child in broad daylight at this point and alot of the nintendo fandom still wouldnt bat an eye so... maybe theyre here to stay.
I'm all for a nintendo downfall. The last time we had one we got Mario Maker, Splatoon, MK8, Pikmin 3, BotW and we also got a free $60 digital game with a purchase of a physical $60 game. The online service was free, we got themes, there was actual character in the console through system music, creative UI and pack in games. It was great other than the fact you had to have a PC or buy another console to play third parties.
Im also lifetime nintendo fan (since snes), so its easy to be the hater when we know how good they can be. Kinda fucked up that desperation is the biggest source of innovation and good consumer practices.
You seem logical, but I wouldnt blame you if you had a switch 2 sitting <10ft from you(social pressure etc). If people dont stop feeding them while theyre at their worst nothing is going to change. until Switch2 is hacked Im not getting one. Im good here with ryujinx and modded 3ds.
I am also hoping and waiting for a modchip or exploit. I'm curious to see what the hardware can actually do when its removed from the chains of big N. I used to have an NSO online subscription near the start of the program but I havent had it since around when they added the expansion pass. I agree with you that Nintendo needs another kick in the pants from consumers so they start acting right. Bring them back to their Wii U days, or Sony's early PS3 days.
Hell Yeah, genuinely felt like everyone around me caved the boycott within a week. Nice to see the few still holding out.
At this point I might just wait for emulators.
I mean, my PC from 2017 (the same year the Switch came out) could play Switch games better than a Switch. Took a little while for the emulators to get up to snuff, but the turnaround was faster than I've ever seen.
I've never been so disappointed in a console's long-term performance as I was with the Switch, with major games like TotK and Pokemon S/V just running like shit. If you can't build a game within the limitations of the single platform you're going to release it on, which you've had access to for 5+ years, wtf are you doing?!
The Switch 2 is similarly underpowered relative to the competition so I have high hopes for emulators, and low expectations for game performance.
Nintendo does some of their best work when they're up against the wall.