Over the past year, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S have been hit with price increases. It's inevitably led to questions about the Switch 2 getting a price hike in the future.
Although there has been no official announcement from Nintendo about a price increase at this stage, the video game business intelligence and consumer insight firm Niko Partners believes a "global price hike" for the new system is likely on the way this year. It shared this in its latest "predictions" piece for 2026, which suggests Nintendo may even "opt to discontinue" the $449 SKU and only sell a $499 or "higher" priced bundle.
"We believe the Switch 2 is set to follow in Sony and Microsoft’s footsteps with its own price hike driven by the impact from tariffs, increased memory costs, and broader macroeconomic conditions. Nintendo chose to maintain its $449 entry price last year despite the introduction of tariffs impacting production in China, Japan and Vietnam. More recently, increased demand for AI data centers has pushed RAM and storage prices up.
"While we do anticipate Nintendo to increase the price of the Switch 2, they may opt to discontinue the $449 SKU and only sell a $499 or higher bundle SKU instead."
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was recently asked about a possible price increase for the Switch 2 this year and said he couldn't "comment on hypotheticals". However, he did acknowledge the current memory prices, stating at the time, how it had no "immediate" impact on Nintendo's financials but the company would continue to monitor the situation closely.
This latest prediction from Niko Partners follows a story last week about the discovery of a "mystery code", which quickly sparked rumours about a new Switch 2 model.