Future TechnologyFuture Technology
HARDWARE

Nintendo Switch 2 Costs $50 More, and Memory Chips Are Why

· 3 min read · By Future Technology

Key takeaways

  • Switch 2 rose from $449.99 to $499.99 in the US on 1 September, with matching increases across the UK, Ireland and other markets
  • Nintendo blames the AI-driven memory shortage: LPDDR5X module costs are up roughly 41 percent
  • President Shuntaro Furukawa says the $50 increase does not fully cover the added cost
  • Japanese sales reportedly fell 87 percent in the week after the hike took effect

Nintendo told shareholders back in May this was coming. On 1 September it arrived anyway: the Switch 2 now costs $499.99 in the US, up from $449.99, with the UK, Ireland and other European markets seeing equivalent rises.

The RAM price crisis has a console-shaped hole in it now

The stated reason is not tariffs or currency, though both get a mention. It is memory. President Shuntaro Furukawa told investors that Switch 2's LPDDR5X modules now cost the company roughly 41 percent more than they did before the AI data centre boom started eating the world's DRAM supply. He was blunt about the maths too: the $50 price rise does not fully offset what Nintendo is now paying its memory suppliers.

That lines up with everything else we have been tracking on this front. Desktop RAM, laptop memory and now console memory are all being squeezed by the same shortage, driven by hyperscalers buying every wafer of high-bandwidth memory they can get for AI training clusters. If you have been holding off on a DDR5 upgrade for your own PC, this is the same story wearing a different logo.

Consumers are not shrugging this one off

Japan gives the clearest read on how the hike landed: sales reportedly dropped 87 percent in the week it took effect. That is a steep fall for a console that has otherwise sold well since launch, and it suggests buyers who were on the fence simply stopped rather than paying the extra $50.

Whether that dip holds through the December quarter is the number worth watching. A one-week crash after a widely pre-announced price change could just be people who moved their purchase earlier to beat the deadline, which would make October look artificially soft rather than genuinely weak.

What this means if you are buying one

There is no sign of a Switch 2 price cut on the horizon while memory stays this expensive, so waiting for a discount is a bet against the entire component market, not just against Nintendo. If you already have a Switch 2 on order, nothing changes. If you do not, expect the $499.99 price to be the floor for a while, and expect other console and handheld makers watching this margin squeeze to consider similar moves of their own.

For more on why memory got this expensive in the first place, see our explainer on HBM versus GDDR versus DDR and our piece on whether you should buy RAM now or wait.

Some links in this article are affiliate links. We may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Sources