UK Survey Shows Enthusiasm for Nintendo Switch and Its Concept, But Pricing is a Factor

The average survey participant gave it 4 out of 5 servings of haggis!

I'd say in the UK that there has been quite a lot of attention on it in the media, such as newspaper articles and even the BBC news as opposed to just industry outlets. Price is a big factor here - it is priced quite high which may affect peoples decision to buy until the library is larger and the console is more embedded. It has, however, had far more focused marketing then the Wii U did at launch.

If Nintendo are doubling production then a price cut is entirely possible.

This isn't such a surprise really, Nintendo couldn't really make the Switch for the same amount as the PS4 or Xbox One as both Sony & Microsoft rely on big cost savings that only come down the line from tooling efficiencies & component savings. Nintendo could have released the Switch at a loss.. but that would have been pretty risky if the Switch failed and likely would have seen Nintendo become the next Sega (likely see the same drop in quality/output too).

@Rudy_Manchego Is correct though, Nintendo is marketing the Switch far better than the Wii U. Physical posters all around the UK, social media adverts, TV adverts, articles in the news, this compares to near radio silence for the Wii U all through launch.

I can see the Switch getting a price cut, but not for a good few months at least. Nintendo need to make money back on the initial production run first... price cuts will come though. Nintendo are likely aware that price will be effecting sales, but can't stand the big losses Sony take when they launch hardware.

@JamesR

That's not really how supply and demand works.

Those are good figures selling to 1/3 of people who have herd of the Switch within the first 4 months of release would be hugely impressive. that selling about 5 time what they've sold already. So (and yes this is a bit of jump) if those percentages hold in other countries that's then 10 million more sales in the next 3 months!! which from the manufacturing figures they just released they are not going to meet! So there's a good chance that there won't be surplus stock on shelves until next year!

I can imagine 'bundle' deals around Christmas time but not until then. I don't mind really but I still think they should have packaged a game with the system or even perhaps given some sort of early bird discount on the eshop

@Dezzy well, I would always caution about the belief that supply and demand "works" at all.

But if Nintendo is ramping up production the cost per unit from the manifacturer should decrease (also, there would be a lower burden on the fixed costs of their business like advertising and game development). This may (or may not) be passed onto the consumer if Nintendo felt that this would unlock additional sales.

A Mario Xmas bundle would be an almost certainty you would think.

In the meantime MK8, Spla2oon, Arms and FE Warriors and maybe a couple of surprises before then might entice a few fence sitters to take the plunge as they might see more value in the machine.

I don't need convincing though as they had me at Zelda, on the go.

Hardware selling at a loss is a myth nowadays, especially after both Sony & Microsoft lost $8 billion last gen bewteen them. That will never happen again hence the reason the PS4 was profitable at launch, http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/23/5744344/ps4-already-profitable-for-sony-ceo-says Nintendo on the other hand will never sell at a loss, Wii U was the exception. The Switch will like the PS4 will already be making Nintendo a profit, so this Xmas holiday you likely see Switch bundle's with Zelda or Mario. So people waiting until the end of the year is wise, because thay are going to get a bit of a better deal. Also there are not missing out on much at the moment, i'll waiting until the end of the year also.

I'm from the Uk and they didn't ask me!!

@banacheck I think Microsoft will be selling the Scorpio at a loss

Having the freedom of a console experience anywhere is well worth the 299.99 imo..

It's 330 euro in Ireland :/

' the $299.99 / €299.99 price..'

Ha, surely you kid? In the Netherlands, Germany and most other EU countries it's €329.99. Also, add in taxes for that $299.99 and in most states you're looking at around $330.

Now I know that simply using an exchange rate doesn't tell the whole story, but that translates to Americans paying somewhat less and Europeans paying more than the Brits.

For the fun of it, let's take a look at how big a percentage these prices are of the GDP per capita. In the UK, it's 7.6% of your monthly income before taxes. In the Netherlands, it's about 7.7%, with Germany having to cough up 9.6%. And in the United States it's........ 7%

So this whole 'Woe us British' shtick is getting kind of old by now.

@JamesR Hope not. Too soon I think (price drop after a year maybe) otherwise early adopters will want some compensation like Nintendo had to do with the 3DS when they dropped the price soon after launch.
Those of us who paid the original price were offered the ambassador programme which was basically 10 free virtual console titles.
If they dropped the price of the Switch so soon I'd expect the same to be offered.

@EternalDragonX I agree. Just like the Original Xbox One was sold at a loss.

Told ya; it's just too expensive in the UK. I was actually hoping for £200 with a pack-in [digital] game, £250 at most (still with a pack-in game), but £280, without any game at all, is just far too much. I mean, you can get a frikn' 1 terabyte Xbox One S with two great pack-in physical games for £50 less than the barebones Switch price:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/02/27/daily-deals-1tb-xbox-one-s-with-battlefield-1-and-halo-wars-2-for-under-230-3

And let's be totally blunt here: Along with Microsoft's own generally great first party titles, the Xbox One is also getting pretty much every single big AAA third party game too, either releasing now or coming in the future, as well as pretty much all of the third party indie stuff also. The Switch isn't even going to compete in terms of AAA third party support—that's just a cold hard fact—which makes it an even tougher sell for many people, regardless of how good most gamers think Nintendo's first party titles are.

It's clear to me that Nintendo still doesn't quite understand what it's competing with here.

Outside of the things it can't really directly control, like the almost total lack of AAA third party support, Nintendo is still giving many potential customers too many reasons to not buy its latest console—and that's not good for anyone.

I do suspect it will be £249 with a game by Christmas. However I'm not sure that will be good enough, particularly with how aggressive Sony has been with the PlayStation.
I guess it comes down to the games, of which we need more heavy hitters (combination of cross format and exclusives), and people's view of how important using it in portable mode is.

I'd like to get one but I can't afford it at the moment; I can definitely understand where all the respondents are coming from.

I'm from the UK and exactly match those findings. Love the look of the hardware but prices are too high (or value is too low with no pack in game and high accessory prices) so I'm holding off for now. That is until I can't resist Zelda for any longer!

Pricing was one of the reasons why I opted for a PS4 instead of the Switch, as well as the currently small library of games on the Switch.

I couldn't justify spending that cash when I had a wiiU at home because I don't see much Fresh games for me this year. If it was sub £250 then I would have picked one up and waited until the games I wanted started coming out. My friends who skipped the wiiU I recommended they get one and enjoy this year's releases but as I saw it by the time my must have games were coming out the price may have dropped and/or switch bundles would have started to come out.
So I like the tech, it's advertised pretty well but still happy with the wiiU and the price is too high for an impulse buy. £250 was my sweet spot.

Just the library put me off.

I made a list of known games I wanted when I got a Switch, 13 games...

I'm from the UK too, no one surveyed me. I bought one I felt lucky in a way as I had £30.00 voucher floating around from Christmas, so mine cost £250.00. Consoles have always been expensive, I still think Switch should have come bundled with Switch 1~2.

@banacheck
I'm definitely waiting for the holidays for a bundle and a possible discount

Funny thing is, if it came with Zelda bundled in and was marketed as costing £15/month on a 24 month contract with no up-front fee then people would probably think it was a great deal.

People seem only too happy to buy £400-600 phones every few years on expensive monthly phone contracts and tell everyone that their handset was 'free'.

@JamesR

I doubt there's much room for improvement via economies of scale. They were already making them by the millions.
I might be wrong, but I doubt there's much efficiency increases when you go between 2 million and 5 million.

@DanteSolablood I also think they've done a great job of explaining what the Switch does and the benefits of the unique design.

@Dezzy In theory, they may be able to secure better sourcing deals on components by paying for larger amounts, as well as guaranteeing production runs at a cheaper rate.

That said, it is all offset by sales. Any saving in producing more is wiped off if stock then sits in a warehouse doing nothing and they need to make a stock writedown.

There seems to be a lot of "journalists" conflating "people would prefer a lower cost" or "people aren't dedicated to gaming enough to pay significant money for a dedicated device" with "the price is unreasonable for the product."

I'm sure a lot of people would like an iPhone 7 but are waiting for the price to drop, or can't justify the money, etc. etc.

Of course the price will probably drop at some point and initial pricing is probably based on that, but half the discussion on pricing is for all the wrong reasons. The product is selling out for now. The price is just fine. If the product stops selling out, then they'll adjust the price. It's as simple as that.

@BionicDodo Yep. People are morons and don't understand costs. What else is new? Switch being mobile just makes it seem that much more in competition with their "Free" $800 phone. That's the same group of people that would balk at a $10 game, but don't mind paying $0.99 for extra lives forever and ever hundreds or thousands of times for the same game.

@Akropolon @FirLocke Came into the thread to ask this. As Locke said, it's €330 here in Ireland, can any other europeans here confirm a €299 price? Not online prices.

@EternalDragonX it might do but i'm still willing to bet it'll still cost you around £424.99/$499.99, with a not so hot CPU.

And then People are slamming Nintendo not going for the Tegra X2 SoC ( which is an industrial chip and incredibly expensive at the moment) or at least put two Tegra X1 SoC's in the Switch.

I guess they think Nintendo is a charity organisation with no one on payroll other than volunteers and filantropists.

I think a price drop is inevitable. Most people (at least that I know) aren't tech savvy and don't appreciate technology for what it is. As such, they think everything on the market is insanely overpriced. I have friends saying they want the Switch but they think it should be $150... which is clearly impractical.

However, I am fully expecting a $50 price drop for the holiday season with a game bundled with it (Mario Kart 8, perhaps). The PS4 and XBOX One might be dropping down to $200 this holiday season, so I think Nintendo needs that $250 price point to compete. I know the company doesn't want to compete with Sony and Microsoft, but they are to a certain extent whether they want to or not.

The closest thing to a price cut in the short run will be bundles.

First Homework for Nintendo to British people just simple. Steal their heart, Embrace them, Comfort them with Beloved Nintendo products. Of course the quality should be main priority. By doing so, British gamer will consider Nintendo even more.

I don't see price cuts coming in year 1 but by the end of the first year on the market, I think it's safe to assume that bundles will come. Same price for the package, but you'll get a free game with it. If they put out a bundle with Zelda in a year from now, the people who will have held out because of the price will have the number one reason to own a Switch, Zelda, for free along with the system and all of a sudden, it will be a far more attractive system. But not till at least next year, they'll want the game to sell by itself a good amount already until they choose to do so.

Unless it receives a fairly good price cut it will fail you can hold me to that because the price of this and a game is WAAAYYYYY to high for what it is, you can have your own perception on this but id bet that point of view is the majority of potential consumers out there.

Although not major, Nintendo does have a slight image problem with the Switch.

It's a tablet, plain and simple. As a tablet, it's pretty cheap. You won't find another tablet on the market that is as powerful as, the switch, with the same storage, and comes with all the accessories for $299. Tablets less powerful, with less storage can sell for $500 or more.

However to its primary market its a game console, so they try and compare it to the price of the PS4/Xbox One, and when you make that comparison it's an under powered console that is more expensive than its more powerful competition.

Unfortunately, average Joe Shopper that plays only consoles typically isn't to technically inclined or well informed either, and that gap grows, further when your talking about parents buying for kids.

For what Switch is, it's a damn good price. For what it advertises to be, it's a bit expensive.

Yeah,price is always a factor. It's not right why can't I pay more for it

I'm from the US, and I guess there's definitely truth to this article, because I waltzed onto Amazon UK and bought myself a Switch with no issues (won't be ready until March 31, but you get the point). The other interesting thing is how the UK survey looks at the price of the Switch-- All costs translated and added up, I only paid 314USD, which I'm totally shocked about still (It would be $317 if I had bought one here in the States off a store shelf, nevermind Amazon US). No break for the UK from Nintendo I guess, which is unfortunate.

Not entirely surprised, since the UK has, since Nintendo's dive into the gaming market; always carried a weird anti-nintendo bias. Not that the price point doesn't matter, but at this stage, 300 for a brand new console is the norm, anyone expecting less than that is deluding themselves. People pay way more than that for phones they'll just replace in a year or actual tablets they'll barely use.

@BiasedSonyFan Sure; just give me a few hundred million dollars for research and development, a team of a hundred or so highly talented people, and handful of years, and sorted. . . .

When it was all announced back in January I did initially think it was expensive but after the dust settled I came to the conclusion that £279.99 for a brand new console isn't actually that bad, I've certainly paid more for new consoles in the past so I jumped on board and pre ordered and I've been more than happy with my purchase.

My real worry however is the price of the games and the various accessories...... They're simply insane and I just don't understand how the prices are justified at all.

I've no personal interest in it but Take just dance 2017 as an example..... I can pick it up for the ps4. For under £20 however if I wanted to buy the EXACT SAME GAME for my nintendo switch it'll cost me £50.

I'm sorry but it's absolute madness and beyond the die hard core nintendo fans pricing like this will scare potential buyers away

No one here's buying it (generalizing a bit but still) because 330€ over here is like the equivalent of 500£ for a British person...

@JamesR there is no way nintendo would give it a price cut this early since it litterally came out this month.

Well, all I can say is that in Canada it's $399.99 so the UK is still getting a bargain in comparison to us. But I still love the Switch, and if the price goes down in the first 4 months then Nintendo better be releasing another Ambassador Program...because that'll be a real sting to all of the early adopters.

@Dezzy You are right but the price of components will definitely go down. So the memory will be cheaper, the screen will also go down in cost.

@Akropolon thats a miss conception in the america's mostly in the united states it varies state by state andd then into districts where i live our tax is 8.25% but in return we have not tax on food.

@JamesR It's too early in it's life cycle for that, since consoles usually sell at a loss and make up for it with software and accessory sales. Though it if sells enough units within the first year or two, we could see that happen.

I understand the price thing, Ive got my eye on a new Bentley but will wait for a price drop.

A few months extra saving and you have a Switch.

I think this concept is worth investing in. I bought one day one and not looked back.

I dont have a problem with a new console priced at £280. In time it will be £250 with a game. The main issue for me (along with possible joycon and dock faults) is the price of pro controllers and joycons. I could go out and buy a switch tomorrow but i refuse to buy into the system with accessories priced so high.

On a side note I have never had any issues with glass screens but I have had a phone with a cheap plastic screen that failed.

I bet people complaining about the price don't think twice about buying a $750 cell phone.

Going to the bar with my buddies cost at least $50. Taking the family out to dinner at least another $50. Going to see a major sports team play is a minimum of a couple of hundred dollars. Last vacation was $3000.

So sorry not going to complain about spending $300 on something that will give my family hours upon hours and years of enjoyment.

@electrolite77 I can get a phone for $5 that will make calls and text.

@BiasedSonyFan Common sense—indeed.

Now, let's imagine what morons like you said about the Wii U when that launched with many of the very same problems as Switch, shall we. . . . And that turned out amazingly well, didn't . . .

Switch is off to a much better start than Wii U, and it has even more potential than Wii U in many ways too, but don't be a blind fanboy and pretend there's basically nothing Nintendo needs to address here in order to make the system be all it can be, and give it the best possible chance at being the success it could be.

Talk to me in a couple of years time and I'll let you know if Nintendo did things right or not (and I don't just mean in terms of sales but in terms of creating a truly satisfying console that actually realised all it's huge potential). . . .

If the Switch were just £30 more than I was willing to pay, then I'd probably just swallow the cost. However the games are more expensive than normal and that worries me.

Even then it's not just the price but the hope that the pound will return to its former strength and we'll see a price drop