It’s an expensive time to be a gamer, that’s for sure.
With blockbuster titles lined up throughout fall and heading into 2027, including a $100 fee for the ‘ultimate edition’ of Grand Theft Auto VI, any pennies that we’ve been storing away are going to be quickly dispersed.
But while you’ve been carefully selecting which AAA releases to put your savings pool towards, the console makers have become hell-bent on making it much harder for you to enjoy these games.
With the next wave of console wars on the horizon, kicking things off with the Steam Machine setting a $1,000 bar, PlayStation and Xbox have quickly responded by hiking the price of the current-gen consoles.
Ahead of Project Helix, Xbox halted its production of the Xbox Series X andbumped the Series S console prices to cost more than what a PlayStation 5 did at launch – a surprising feat for a ‘small’ console.
The biggest price hike comes by the way of PlayStation, though, as the looming arrival of the PS6 has seen Sony deploy a massive 30 percent jump in price for both the PS5 and PS5 Pro. Ouch.
While there’s clearly some savvy marketing at play – making the jump to next-gen consoles seem smaller – the ‘RAMpocalypse’ has played its part, with a mass shortage of cards thanks to the development of AI data centres hogging the memory.
Now, Nintendo has joined in with the price hikes.
Nintendo Switch 2 joins in with console price hikes
As of September 1, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be increasing in price by £24 in the UK, jumping from its current price of £395.99 to a revised £419.99.
In the US, it’s a $50 increase from $449.99 to $499.99.
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Nintendo soft-launched the price hikes in Japan back in May, with region-locked, Japanese-language-only consoles jumping from ¥49,980 to ¥59,980, which is roughly $64.
Back in May, Nintendo director Shuntaro Furukawa said, “We sincerely apologise for the impact these price revisions may have on our customers.”
The retail prices won’t jump up until September, meaning any potential Nintendo Switch 2 buyers should get their orders in before August ends.
Nintendo’s jump is by far the smallest of the major console makers, being around five percent – a significantly smaller hike than PlayStation’s 30 percent.
The second-gen Switch is getting a wealth of new AAA games too, starting with a highly anticipated RPG, The Duskbloods, coming from Elden Ring creator FromSoftware.
Featured Image Credit: Nintendo
