Among the remaining unknowns around Nintendo’s next console, there is that of the price.
The presentation of the Nintendo Switch 2 seems to be fast approaching. Several journalistic sources point to an official announcement as of this Thursday, January 16, 2025.
In the meantime, rumors and leaks are igniting around the design of the console or its characteristics. But there remain big unknowns: its release date, its price or even the games that will accompany the launch.
We offer you an analysis and an estimate of the price that we can expect for the Switch 2. We had already carried out this exercise in 2020 before the launch of the PS5 and the Xbox Series S and X.
Nintendo is on the rise
Before making an estimate of the selling price of the Switch 2, we must look at the context of its launch and the history of the brand.
First of all, Nintendo rather favors aggressive prices for its consoles. When we compare the launch prices of home consoles, the majority of Nintendo consoles are in a price range below 400 euros, far behind the Xbox and PlayStation, located above the 400 euros mark.
If we compare the launch of the Nintendo Switch in 2017 and that of the next console in 2025, the manufacturer’s context is also very different. In 2017, Nintendo came out of a severe commercial failure with the Wii U, with only 13.56 million copies sold (that’s about four times less than the Xbox One). This is not the case in 2025 where the Nintendo Switch is one of the most popular consoles of all time with 146 million copies sold.
Finally, it must be taken into account that Nintendo, like any console manufacturer, focuses above all on the sale of games associated with its console, more than on the margin generated on the sales of the machine itself. However, Nintendo has a habit of not selling its consoles at a loss, even at launch.
Obviously, we must also take into account inflation, particularly in the tech sector, which has transformed the scale of prices charged. A PS5 Pro at 799 euros would have been unthinkable in 2017.
What price for the Nintendo Switch 2?
Taking all these criteria into account, what price should we expect for Nintendo’s next console?
First of all, it is reasonable to expect a price increase. Whether due to inflation, because Nintendo has stronger backs than in 2017 or because its technical partner, Nvidia, has also increased its prices.
Low hypothesis
By calculating a price adjusted in 2025 by inflation from the 330 euros of the launch price of the Nintendo Switch, we come across a price of 394.66 euros.
-This is an estimate that seems credible to us given Nintendo’s pricing habits, a console which would be launched at 399 euros compared to a PlayStation 5 at 449 euros for its edition without disc reader.
- In this hypothesisthe Nintendo Switch 2 would be launched at 399 euros.
Average hypothesis
In this hypothesis, Nintendo and Nvidia have increased their margins since 2017, being convinced that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be a success thanks to the triumph of the previous console.
We then place ourselves in the context of the launch of the Wii U, which itself followed the triumph of the Wii sold at a competitive price. For the Wii U, Nintendo chose a higher price, 349 euros for the premium edition at launch. Adjusted with the inflation rate, we arrive at 420 euros in 2025.
- In this hypothesis, the Nintendo Switch 2 would be launched at 419 euros.
High hypothesis
This time, in addition to average inflation, we take into account the very high prices charged by the rest of the tech market for several years.
In this hypothesis, we imagine that Nintendo offers a Switch 2 directly equipped with an Oled screen and not an LCD screen, associated with large and fast internal storage, and we take into account the prices charged by Nvidia since the RTX generation 3000.
We then arrive at the idea of a Nintendo Switch 2 marketed at 499 euros or more, like the Steam Deck Oled 512 GB sold at 569 euros.
- In this hypothesis, the Nintendo Switch 2 would be launched at 499 euros.
Just one configuration?
What if several of our hypotheses were verified? Nintendo could make the choice, not mentioned in the rumors, to launch several different configurations.
This is what the brand chose to do with the Wii U, by offering a Basic edition at 299 euros and a Premium edition at 349 euros. The latter was much more interesting for the consumer, but required more effort when checking out.
Nintendo could repeat the experience with the Switch 2 by offering several storage configurations, or by launching both an LCD model and an Oled model. It’s a marketing technique that is very successful for Apple, with products at a deliberately lower price and less interesting, backed by an option 100 or 200 euros more expensive (in the case of Apple) with more storage.
It should still be noted that this is not really in the brand’s habits, if we put aside the Wii U episode.
If we should only remember one thing from our estimate, it is that we should expect a price increase from Nintendo. There is little chance of seeing a new generation of console arrive in Japan at 329 euros, like in 2017.
