That’s enough rare to be reported: Nintendo has no plans to raise the selling price of its flagship console to offset the general price hike, at least for now. Asked by Nikkei AsiaShuntaro Furukawa, the president of the Japanese multinational, explained that it does not want to exclude customers by raising the price of the Nintendo Switch even as the shortage of semiconductors continues and the cost of raw materials increases.
According to Furukawa, a possible increase would be counterproductive: “In order to provide a unique entertainment experience to a wide range of customers, we want to avoid excluding people by raising prices. […] Our products also include software. Nintendo has sold over 100 million Switches so far, and it’s important to keep our overall business momentum going. »
As for many other technology companies, the current context is far from favorable to the Japanese manufacturer. The Switch is more popular than ever, but Nintendo can’t make enough of them, resulting in a 23% annual sales decline in the second quarter (Nintendo’s annual profits have still tripled since the launch of the Switch). the Switch in 2017, the situation is still far from catastrophic).
For now, Nintendo is hoping to weather the storm despite a weak yen and an OLED model that’s less profitable than the classic Switch and Switch Lite: “All I can say is that we will try to maintain our rate of sales. Having successful games also propels our hardware sales. We have a variety of games that will allow us to try to meet our sales targets, including Splatoon 3 in September and Pokemon Scarlet and Purple in November. »