Nintendo has addressed rumours of a Switch 2 price rise, and it may be bad news for the Steam Machine.
The economy surrounding gaming hardware has been a bit iffy lately, with RAM and GPU prices being driven upwards as a result of the AI boom, as well as US price tariffs raising the cost of consoles and games.
The crisis has resulted in the pricing of PlayStation and Xbox consoles to skyrocket, with Xbox especially seeing two rather hefty cost increases in the same year.
The Nintendo Switch 2 remains priced at $449.99, with many speculating whether the company would increase the prices of its hardware following the global RAM crisis.
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Nintendo seems to be ruling that out for now, but cautions that a price rise may be possible if the situation worsens.
“Hardware profitability depends on factors like component procurement conditions, cost reductions through mass production, and the impact of exchange rates and tariffs,” said Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa in a new interview with Kyoto Shinbun (translation via VGC).
“It’s difficult to generalize. Fundamentally, we aim to address this by advancing component procurement over the medium to long term.”
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Furukawa added that the company will continue to monitor RAM pricing, explaining that “We procure from suppliers based on our medium- to long-term business plans, but the current memory market is very volatile. There is no immediate impact on earnings, but it is something we must monitor closely.”
The Cost Of GPU And RAM Prices Have Increased Exponentially Over The Past Few Months
It’s no secret that these RAM and GPU price increases have cut into the console profit margin in the past few months, which has caused manufacturers to consider raising the price of their consoles.
While the Nintendo Switch 2 may be safe for now, there’s no telling what could happen in the future if AI datacentres keep buying up stock of GPUs and RAM, an action that has already caused prices to skyrocket by over 200% in some cases.
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It could also spell trouble for the Steam Machine, the upcoming compact PC-like console from Valve aimed at casual PC gamers.
The rumoured price for the Steam Machine sits at around $950, with a 2TB model costing around $1070, far higher than the cost of a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S.
This has caused a bit of shaky discourse online, where Steam users have started questioning just who exactly the Steam Machine is aimed at.
PC diehards will opt to build one themselves, saving on the cost of parts by putting one together from scratch, while casual gamers may prefer a PS5 or Xbox due to the lower cost.
Topics: Nintendo Switch 2, Steam Machine, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Valve