Earlier on today, Nintendo officially announced price rises to the Switch 2 worldwide. Alongside that, they have also announced several smaller scale increases as well.

This increase was announced as part of Nintendo’s earning reports on the 8th of May and is a response to pressures in market conditions at the moment. It includes the shortages in RAM and storage as well.

Increases have been announced for the Switch 2 in several regions, Switch 1 (Japan) and Nintendo Switch Online (Japan with South Korea to follow). Each set of increases are coming into place at different times. All of the increases are listed below with the date they will take effect.

Announced increases

May 25th 2026 – Japanese physical item increases:

• Switch 2 (Japanese language only variant): ¥49980 > ¥59980 (approx £280)
• Switch OLED (Japan): ¥37980 > ¥47980 (approx £225)
• Switch (Japan): ¥32978 > ¥43980 (approx £206)
• Switch Lite (Japan): ¥21978 > ¥29980 (approx £140)
• Additionally, prices of Hanafuda trading cards are increasing but are listed as “Open Price”

Switch 1 consoles will not increase at the present moment outside of Japan.

July 1st 2026 – Japan Switch Online price increase:

• Nintendo Switch Online (Individual, 1m): ¥306 > ¥400 (£1.87)
• Nintendo Switch Online (Individual, 3m): ¥815 > ¥1000 (£4.68)
• Nintendo Switch Online (Individual, 12m): ¥2400 > ¥3000 (£14.05)
• Nintendo Switch Online (Family, 12m): ¥4500 > ¥5800 (£27.16)
• Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack (Individual, 12m): ¥4900 > ¥5900 (£27.62)
• Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack (Family, 12m): ¥8900 > ¥9900 (£46.35)

Increases are also happening in South Korea but they’re not announced yet.

September 1st 2026 – Worldwide Switch 2 price increases:

• United States: US$449.99 > US$499.99
• Canada: CA$629.99 > CA$679.99
• Europe: 469.99€ > 499.99€

I suspect more regions will be announced soon. A price rise for the UK and other European regions have been confirmed that they will be finalised at a later date, see the BBC’s article.

My thoughts

Honestly, it was bound to happen at some point. Nintendo could not realistically hold out too much longer given the complicated environment we currently find ourselves in. It definitely sucks, but the increases are somewhat minimal (I am expecting it to be roughly £430 here in the UK so about £34 increase) and I think Nintendo has really allocated a lot of time for fans to be able to grab Switch 2’s before it increases.

The other increases do not seem to be getting the same traction, but I assume they will be isolated and will not be expanded abroad any time soon. Nintendo does claim the Switch Online price increase is to “support appropriate alignment among regions.” I have looked at the revised prices and to be fair, it still works out cheaper than it is here but local conditions do vary.

One thing that I will briefly mention is that non of the bundle prices have been mentioned at all. They realistically will rise, I would expect by the same amount that the consoles have increased by but who knows?

Feel free to leave your thoughts on the rises down in the comments or leave a reply to the post on the fediverse. For now, goodnight!