Nintendo president talks of need to 'monitor' RAM costs but Switch 2 price isn't due for a hike

Worried that Nintendo will hike Switch 2 price due to the RAM crisis? The firm's president assures us this won't happen, but the situation needs monitoring.

Nintendo president talks of need to 'monitor' RAM costs but Switch 2 price isn't due for a hike
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Tech Reporter
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2-minute read time
TL;DR: Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has said that the current RAM price hikes do not immediately impact the Switch 2 in terms of earnings or pricing. While a price increase for the handheld remains purely 'hypothetical' and therefore Furukawa wouldn't comment on that possibility, the president admitted the situation with memory pricing needs to be closely monitored.

The president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, has been questioned on the RAM pricing crisis and how that might affect the Switch 2 - and the swift answer is it won't, at least for the time being.

The Switch 2 won't be going up in price - but the RAM crisis still needs to be watched carefully (Image Credit: Nintendo)
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The Switch 2 won't be going up in price - but the RAM crisis still needs to be watched carefully (Image Credit: Nintendo)

Furukawa was interviewed by Kyoto Shimbun, a daily newspaper in Japan (Kyoto, as you might guess) on a range of topics related to Nintendo, in a paywalled article translated by VGC (as flagged by TechRadar).

The Nintendo president was asked about the challenges posed by the lower profit margin on the Switch 2 compared to its predecessor, and noted that these things depend on "component procurement conditions" as well as the impact of global currency fluctuations and tariffs.

A lot of moving parts and variables, in other words, and Furukawa went on to note:

"It's difficult to generalize. Fundamentally, we aim to address this by advancing component procurement over the medium to long term."

He then admitted that the price spike with RAM - which has been seriously harsh, of course - is something that could become an issue with the cost of the Switch 2, if it's prolonged. But for now, Nintendo has the resources to weather the storm, having already built up an inventory of memory for its products.

Furukawa said:

"We procure from suppliers based on our medium- to long-term business plans, but the current memory market is very volatile. There is no immediate impact on earnings, but it is something we must monitor closely."

Kyoto Shimbun followed up with a direct question on whether future RAM costs might drive a price increase for the Switch 2, but the Nintendo president said he wouldn't comment as the issue was 'hypothetical'.

And to be fair to Furukawa, not everyone agrees on how long these ridiculously high RAM prices might remain a blight on the components world. Although more and more predictions seem to be indicating that this is a longer-term crisis, and will certainly last beyond this year and into 2027 - or maybe even longer.

For the time being, though, the news sounds relatively positive for Nintendo hardware, albeit with that guarded caveat about monitoring the situation to take into account.