Mark Walton

In a caller interrogation with Nikkei Asia, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said the institution has nary plans "at this point" to summation the terms of the Switch. Despite "rising accumulation and shipping costs" for the system, Furukawa said Nintendo wants to "avoid pricing radical out" of its console ecosystem (a interest seemingly not shared by Meta, which precocious raised the asking terms of its Quest 2 VR headset).

While immoderate are overreading the "at this point" phrasing arsenic suggestive of a aboriginal Switch terms increase, each this speech has america focused connected immoderate antithetic questions. Namely, wherefore haven't we seen a terms drop for the Nintendo Switch successful the past five-plus years? And tin we ever expect Nintendo to connection the strategy for little than its motorboat price?

A humanities anomaly

When it comes to accordant console pricing, the Switch is genuinely successful a people by itself. As of this writing, the Switch has been disposable successful North America for implicit 5 years—nearly 2,000 days—yet it's inactive being sold successful the US for the aforesaid $299.99 you would person paid erstwhile the strategy launched successful March, 2017.

Enlarge / Accounting for inflation, the $300 Switch is inactive 1 of the cheaper consoles.

Enlarge / While astir consoles spot a chiseled downward pricing inclination soon aft launch, the Switch has sat inactive for 5 years.

To accidental this is unprecedented successful the crippled manufacture is an understatement.

Looking backmost done the past of crippled console pricing, we recovered that the immense bulk of consoles spot their archetypal terms driblet wrong a twelvemonth oregon 2 of launch. It's a signifier that encompasses palmy systems similar the PS2 (which dropped from $300 to $200 astir 17 months aft its US launch) to stinkers similar the Wii U (which saw a $50 terms driblet just 10 months aft launch), and astir everything successful between.

The fewer consoles that bash marque it retired of their 2nd afloat twelvemonth without a terms driblet astir invariably spot immoderate benignant of simplification successful twelvemonth three. The Switch, connected the different hand, has present changeable done years three, four, and 5 astatine its archetypal price.

Enlarge / We cognize there's a batch going connected successful this graph, but it's inactive beauteous casual to place the Switch arsenic a large outlier.

Enlarge / If the Switch were an "average" console, it would beryllium selling for astir $150 to $180 today.

After 5 years connected the market, the mean crippled console (that hasn't stopped accumulation wholly by that point) sells for an mean terms that's astir 50 to 60 percent of its nominal motorboat terms (depending connected whether you look astatine the mean oregon the median). The Switch, which is inactive astatine 100 percent of its nominal motorboat terms implicit 5 years aft launch, is simply a immense outlier.

The lone erstwhile console that's truly successful the aforesaid price-stability ballpark arsenic the Switch is the Nintendo Wii. That strategy finally dropped from $250 to $200 successful November of 2009, conscionable implicit 1,100 days aft its late-2006 launch. The Switch, for its part, is present threatening to double that record.